Tag Archives: clothing

From Japanese Fabric to Casual Friday: the Aloha Shirt

hawaii,

I’ve been a member of Todd’s GNC ohana since double-digit episodes but I know relatively little about Hawaii. Out in the Pacific, the archipelago is part of the US and home to Pearl Harbor. Famous for big waves, it’s the birthplace of surfing, with native Hawaiians enjoying the sport for centuries. That’s really about it….I never watched Hawaii 5-0.

Duke’s Pareo design by Kahala

The team over at 99% Invisible have been running a podcast series called “Articles of Interest” exploring the background to clothes and clothing – blue jeans, tartan (plaid), pockets and Hawaiian shirts, aka aloha shirts.

This episode investigates the background of the aloha shirt, the meaning of the pattern and how to spot a high quality product. The history of the shirt is linked to the history of the state – did you know that the Hawaii is home to the only royal palace in US and it had electricity before the White House?

Starting out as a novelty shirt made from Japanese material for kimonos in the 1930s, skilful marketing increased the popularity of the aloha shirt during the 1960s and 70s until it was accepted business attire in Hawaii. Part of the campaign on the islands created “Aloha Friday” which in turn became the inspiration for casual Fridays and business casual.

Have a listen to the Hawaiian Shirt episode to learn a little more about Todd’s home state.

Surfboard photo by Abigail Lynn on Unsplash.

Bonnie Binary Demos E-Textiles at WTS

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BonnieBinary Logo For me, this was one of the highlights of the Wearable Technology Show. Bonnie Binary is a design consultancy offering creative skills and prototyping for e-textile and associated wearable technology products.

The team at Bonnie Binary have created impressive demonstrations of e-textiles, with lights sewn into the cloth responding to touch on other areas of the fabric.

Rather than explain what Bonnie Binary can do, here are two short videos demonstrating their e-textile capabilities and founder Annie Lywood tells me more in the interview.

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Wearable Technology Show 2016

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Wearable Technology Show 2016Earlier this week, GNC visited the Wearable Technology Show in London, England, to check out the state of this developing area. Part trade show and part conference, this was very much B2B territory with “I’ll give you a call next week” and “I’ll send through an NDA” being heard on more than one occasion. Although not a big show, covering only two halls at ExCeL, it incorporated IoT Connect and Augumented Reality VR. There was a strong international presence with exhibitors from Spain, Finland and China, and one person commented that he felt this was probably the #4 event after CES, IFA and MWC, which puts it in illustrious company.

Bonnie Binary Embroidered JacketThere was an interesting range of exhibitors from the big names like Samsung and TomTom to small entrepreneurs looking for help to take their products to the next level. Check out this embroidered jacket from Bonnie Binary with lights and controls sewn into the coat.

Jaguar were there showing off the F-PACE, a performance SUV stuffed with technology. Prices start from GB£35,000 but the First Edition model at the show was nearly twice that at £65,000. Jaguar F-PaceIf you’re wondering how this ties in with wearables, the car comes with a waterproof “activity key” wristband that replaces a traditional key fob. The car can also detect when the driver is tired and suggests taking a break. Stunning looking car.

Infi-tex Pressure Sensing ClothSmart fabrics were much in evidence too. With perhaps the longest track record in the industry, Infi-tex had a cloth that could do multipoint pressure sensing. See how the peaks correspond with the pressure from the fingers.

For the first time I left my trusty Olympus digital voice recorder behind and relied on my OnePlus 2 smartphone with IK Multimedia’s iRig Mic Cast and Sony’s Audio Recorder app for interviews. The iRig seems to cope with the background noise well and Audio Recorder records 44 kHz, 16 bit WAV files and I’m hoping that this will reduce the processing time for each interview. I bagged about 25 interviews and these will be pushed out over the coming weeks.

Watch this space!

Hexoskin Smart Shirt Now Comes In Small

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Hexoskin LogoCanadian outfit Hexoskin has been in the wearables market longer than most, starting out in 2006 and now has a range of smart shirts with a built-in body metric system to measure heart rate, breathing, activity and sleeping using sensors woven into the fabric of the shirt.

Hexoskin, with the support of NASA and the Canadian Space Agency, created sensors made of textile, leaving almost no hardware in the shirt – there’s no watch or tight fitting chest band required. There is a small recording unit that slips into a side pocket on the shirt and communicates with a smartphone via Bluetooth. Both iOS (Apple) and Android phones are supported, and a downloaded app keeps track of all the data. With over 42,000 data points recorded every minute, there’s a fair amount of data.

In addition to the usual metrics, the Hexoskin system also measures heart rate recovery, heart rate variability, breathing rate, breathing volume, activity level, acceleration and cadence, all in real time. These metrics give users the information they need to plan their training programmes and surpass their fitness and athletic goals. Essentially a wearable precision lab, Hexoskin provides its users with high quality metrics in real time – these are tools for people serious about their performance.

Today, Hexoskin announced child and youth sizes for the Hexoskin shirt, making it the world’s first biometric smart shirt tailor-made for kids and teens. Adapted to fit all the same sensors of the adult shirts into the smaller shirt size, the Hexoskin Junior will be available in sizes XXS to XL.

Hexoskin Kids

“Youth athletics are popular all over the world,” said Pierre-Alexandre Fournier, Co-Founder and CEO of Hexoskin.  “Whether it’s hockey, baseball, football, soccer, volleyball or track & field, kids are part of intense training programs that are training them to become champions and Olympians.  With the addition of Hexoskin Junior, we’ve set out to provide coaches, parents and kids the invaluable tools our adult shirts provide.”

By reviewing the data before, during and after workout sessions, users can exert maximum training effort, while still avoiding fatigue, overtraining and injuries.  This is particularly important with young athletes, especially since they are still growing and can be at a greater risk for injury than adult athletes.

Hexoskin Junior is available for pre-order in sizes XXS to XL and will retail for $149 for the shirt alone. A full starter pack with monitoring devices is $379. Not cheap but if you are going for gold, it’s probably money well spent. For more information, visit www.hexoskin.com.

Get Your 4th Amendment On

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If you’ve been following Todd and the general back scatter x-ray scanner debacle, then you might be interested in this range of underwear from the Cargo Collective.  The undergarments have the 4th Amendment printed in metallic letters so that the text is revealed by the scanner and displayed on the monitor. Genius.

Choose from T-shirts, underwear, socks and children’s clothes, with both plain “4th Amendment” and more provocative “Pervert” versions, though I don’t think the latter shows up on the scanners.

For those not familiar with the US Constitution, the 4th Amendment says, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”    You can read more at Wikipedia.