I feel it's very important to make the
fashion industry more sustainable it's
the second polluting industry in the
world but the solar technology is
developing and is becoming more thin and
flexible this really gives new
opportunities for fashion
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I'm a fashion designer working in the
field of wearable technology
implementing new technologies to make
our garments respond in a different way
and therefore also communicate in a
different way
wearable technology is able to connect
different industries that were not
connected before I'm being connected
with people from the solar energy
industry and we look at what we can mean
for each other to advance our idea of
expression is what could be in the
future while working with wearable
technology you realize what it takes to
power all your wearable devices and that
you're always carrying these heavy
battery packs and then start making
these kind of circuits and all the
wiring that you need it's always an
issue
so looking at how to wearable technology
market is rapidly growing we need to
come up with a more sustainable solution
for that we come just rely on batteries
forever
wearable solar is a project that I
started about a year ago and it started
off as a research in how we can
implement solar cells into fashion so
that your body could actually become a
sustainable source of energy both
designs that I made the dress and the
code if you wear them for two hours
outside in the Sun they charge your
phone from zero to 100% so basically
what we did first is we calculated what
the service area would be so to really
have some energy that you can actually
do something with and then we looked at
how can they be placed efficiently on
the body so that they would capture
enough sunlight and would generate
energy that for instance could power
your smartphone we're all addicted to a
smart phones and we want them to be
constantly powered and our garment is
something that we always have with us
together with our smartphone so this was
quite an obvious connection you would
never need a battery again you could
just be sustainable and generate your
own energy through your clothing
my goal is to make the technology
invisible and to really have it working
from the inside out so if we would have
a solar cell on the yarn level that
could be integrated within the textile
of your garment you could use this
fabric that is a solar cell if you look
at solar energy in textile textiles not
something we only use in fashion so you
can think of other applications like
sails of boats there are so many
surfaces out there in the world that we
don't use in such an efficient way
textile has a lot of properties that
other materials don't have like the
flexibility dependability so this could
be something that could be further
explored right now there are few
downsides on the prototypes that I have
one of them is the wash ability so I'm
now looking at solar cells that are
encapsulated within it like a plastic
layer so that they can become washable
as a designer and wearable tech you
often have to convince other industries
of the importance of working with their
technologies and in fashion you have to
go and knock on the door of a solar
energy manufacturer and say like hey I
want to implement your technology in
fashion can you make your solar cells
washable
I think by adding technology to fashion
we can return fashions value to people
so that they would cherish their
garments for a longer period and just
not discarded like after a couple months
because it's based on trend wearable
tech definitely invites more people to
to enter the fashion world and to help
us create new innovations that make the
system better because I mean fashion is
all about the Neal but the industry
itself has been the same for a firm
decades so it's really time that
something's being changed
you