Since when did technology enter fashion?
Recently, the tech company, Adobe, debuted its Project Primrose. This dress is a sparkly, silver interactive dress which can change its fabric pattern, colors and style. It uses generative AI to customize the dress and outfit to the buyer's liking.
How do users know this dress is safe and ethical? The project has underwent many successful testing trials using in vitro samples from patients. The next phase will include experiments with saliva and urine samples using biosensors.
There’s also potential for adapting the device to detect biomarkers for various other medical conditions. This has been a common breakthrough throughout the medical field. Biosensors can provide us so much information we may not be aware of from inside out bodies to the way we react.
The device relies on electrical detection as opposed to chemical detection, which researchers say is easier to implement and more accurate. From smart-bandages to smart watches and so many advancing sectors, will this new area of smart fashion be a new era?
Smart fashion appears to be stuck in small-scale experiments. They often fail to launch beyond original demonstrations which draw attention online, whether at tech conferences or on red carpets or runways. For example, in 2016, Levi’s partnered with Google’s smart fabric initiative, Project Jacquard, which focused on interactive denim jackets woven with conductive fibers.
In 2019, Saint Laurent partnered with the same program to create its Cit-e Backpack. This enabled the bag to to control music, drop pins on the go, and take photos through gestures. Additionally, Loomia debuted the Loomia H1, which was a heated wool jacket powered by a two-hour battery and washable by hand. In March 2023, Google reported that they were quietly shutting down the Jacquard app. By April, users were no longer able to use their Jacquard accessories.
Ethical Questions
Can these clothes be mass-produced at an affordable price? Can the technology incorporated in it be used reliably? Will consumers be open towards adopting it? Will these clothes be the new era of fashion? Will it be more sustainable or more wasteful?
The Adobe team, currently focuses on innovating in two streams: figuring out a practical version for people to use and to develop color and personalization features. However, many people from the Adobe team says there is still a long way to go.
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