Environmental Awareness
The climate dress is an interactive dress that is reacting on CO2-changes in the nearby surroundings. The dress senses the CO2 concentration in the air, then accordingly creates diverse light patterns by the use of over hundred LEDs – varying from slow, regular light pulsations to short and hectic. The Climate Dress is a statement that, trough an aesthetic representation of environmental data, contributes to the ongoing debate about environmental issues.
How Haute Couture and interaction design blend
The Climate Dress uses soft conductive thread that has a similar consistence to the kind of thread used for traditional and industrial embroidery. This way the embroidery becomes more than an esthetic element – it has a crucial function conveying electricity and computer information, thereby giving ‘power to the dress’. Several microcontrollers are connected together via conductive threads, gathering data from the CO2 sensor and transforming the information into light patterns.
The dress does not rely on wiring, soldering or crimping typically impairing the textile aspect of ‘smart textile’ products. All functional elements are blended into the embroidery, proudly exposed to the eye. Ornamental design and functionality are no longer antagonists.
A unique collaboration
To realise The Climate Dress Diffus Design brought together experts from diverse fields of knowledge like microelectronics, wireless communication, embroidery, fashion design and interaction design. Establishing common ground for these radically different fields creates a base for unique and innovative product designs also for the future. The Climate Dress were thereby realised as a joint effort between Danish design studio Diffus Design www.diffus.dk, Danish designer Tine M. Jensen, Swiss embroidery experts Forster Rohner www.forsterrohner.ch, The Danish School of Design www.dkds.dk and the Danish research institute Alexandra Institute www.alexandra.dk.
