Fiber scientist Juan Hinestroza has been making the media rounds lately about nanotechnology-enabled textiles/clothing. From the August 2, 2011 article by Jill Colvin for DNAinfo.com,
Imagine clothes that change color with the press of a button, charge your cell phone, clean the air, kill bacteria and repel stains so they never have to be washed again.
That’s the mission of Cornell University fiber science pioneer Juan Hinestroza, who’s leading the revolution to bring high-end function to high-end fashion in Manhattan.
Presenting his findings to a small group of reporters at Cornell’s ILR Conference Center in Midtown Tuesday, Hinestroza said that in less than a decade, he expects nanotechnology to be commonplace in the clothing industry.
It’s interesting to see this as I first came across Hinestroza’s work in 2007 when I was developing my Nanotech Mysteries wiki page, Scientists get fashionable.
copyright 2007 Cornell University) Design student Olivia Ong ’07 with garments, treated with metallic nanoparticles through a collaboration with fiber scientists, Juan Hinestroza and Hong Dong, that she designed for ‘Gliteratti’ collection.
(For permission to copy and use the image please contact, The Cornell Chronicle media office here: nwp2@cornell.edu or 607.254.6236.)
The fabric you see in the image cost, in 2007, $10,000 per square meter. I wonder what it would cost today?
I thought of nanoclothing as both purely functional where the clothes can monitor certain phisiological functions and relay results directly to computor for analysis, act as garments that absorb or radiate heat however I am also impressed with the possibility that nanoclothing could function as a device for communication by both color and sound picking up on ones
own inner moods or programmable moods for socialization and parties.
Pingback: Nanotechnology-enabled fashion at Cornell University « FrogHeart