Wearable Art

[cjsmith]

If I made "wearable art", what would it be?

- A snug-fitting sleeveless black leather vest with intricate geometric patterns cut out of it, letting the brilliant blue long-sleeved silk shirt underneath show through
- Hallowe'en variant: jack o'lantern face cut out, orange silk underneath
- A sweater knitted out of Kevlar
- A deep forest green velvet gown with an entire sunlit landscape scene embroidered on it in gold thread
- A fully articulated cat tail with tiny internal motors, wired for the wearer's control
- A dress whose entire visible surface is tiny LEDs
- "Wings" stretching from a long sleeve's seam down to a line along the wearer's side, based in something very light and supple such as silk so they will fold up, and covered in feathers

Y'know. Stuff.

Comments

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

You'd look good in that stuff. I like the prehensile cat tail idea. We all need one. :-)

Dare I ask what inspired this line of thinking?

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

A post about "what you're old enough to wear" by my friend lkeele. :)

[firecat]

I like all of them, but the leather vest, the cat tail (which I've seen people wearing at furry cons), and the LED dress appeal to me the most.

Just don't sell advertising space on the dress!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh cool, someone's already done the cat tail. Odd how my first emotional reaction to that is "Then I don't have to." :-)

EEeiiuuu, right! Definitely no advertising space on the dress. I hadn't even been thinking of making them individually controllable -- the infrastructure would probably get too thick. More like waves of color...

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Ooo. The cat tail needs, of course, swivelable-and-foldable EARS.

I am now all but squeeing in delight. I want these, although I'm not at all sure I'm the right person to design and craft them. :-)

[firecat]

I want too!

[just-cyd.livejournal.com]

ooooooh. all of those sound beautiful. i'd love to have a kitty-tail.

Kelvar - is that the bullet-proof stuff? i can knit now, so figure out how to make/acquire kelvar thread, and we can talk! ;-)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yep, Kevlar properly used is, well, at least bullet-resistant ;-). It is hell on scissors though.

[just-cyd.livejournal.com]

and probably also impossible to sew through on a standard home machine. that pings all of my "challenge!!" buttons and makes me want to find some kelvar to play with! ('cause, you know, i have no other crafts/projects going right now)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't think you sew THROUGH Kevlar. You sew AROUND the fibers. And I don't know how you'd ever "finish" the edges.

I think it doesn't kink easily, either -- it curves some, but if I recall correctly it'd be a tin-plated bitch to knit because it wouldn't want to curve nearly as sharply as it would need to. But I could be wrong about that part. I've never actually played with any, just talked to people who had.

[karenbynight.livejournal.com]

a college friend of mine made a prom dress -- out of real PROMs.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

That is awesome!

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

ooh!

[eichin.livejournal.com]

mmm, inspiration points :-)

for the wings - you might be able to do something clever with Nitinol ("shape memory metal wire") ribs, so that they stiffen up with a little power applied...

for the LEDs - mmm, addressing is a challenge, but I bet you could just clock them from an edge (if you know how JTAG works, that's what I'm talking about) and then you'd get great ripple patterns as the dress "loads" :-) Oh, and OLED should make this easier, but probably not for another year or two (but it'll be very high res :)

with the leather - if the geometric shapes are still attached on an edge, you can tuck them and have the overall pattern effect change over the course of an evening...

cat tail - pneumatic or hydraulic bladders at joints might give a more realistic look, and an easier control mechanism (connect the tubes to bladders in pockets along the sides of a vest, press your arm against one to make the tail motion - you might even be able to make it look natural, with practice.) Though with the motors, you can have more complex actions pre-programmed [or go all hardcore and have them respond directly to changes in blood pressure and skin temperature :-)]

re the sweater - "kevlar yarn" finds rocketry supply stores - for parachute-release cords and such, at about 15c/foot in tiny quantities (probably cheaper upstream) chosen for it's fire resistance...

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

if you know how JTAG works, that's what I'm talking about

Yeah, I hadn't been thinking of anything more complex. Your comment about the dress "loading" makes me think: don't put ten meg of memory in a five meg dress...

"kevlar yarn" finds rocketry supply stores - for parachute-release cords and such, at about 15c/foot in tiny quantities (probably cheaper upstream)

Yeah, some of this isn't exactly *practical* and enough plain Kevlar to knit a sweater is definitely included there. But still. I'm remembering the big ol' spool I saw once down in Maryland, when Nancy was still working for DuPont, and from that moment on I thought the most humorous garment in the world would be a bulletproof bikini.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

I hope you do go through with some of these :)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Some time when I have more time and money than "good sense" I probably will. :-)