Published by Celestyna Brozek under Designers, Education

I originally contacted Lynne Bruning with the modest goal of just getting a rundown on the Maker Faire fashion scene this year – an intriguing intersection of fashion, imagination, technology, and hacker DIY power. Interspersed throughout the post are some of the pieces featured, including the infamous North skirt by Meredith Scheff. However, it soon became apparent that there was a lot to be discussed when it came to fashion and technology – I’m a sucker when it comes to interviews so after some arm twisting (not!) I happily sat down for a chat with Lynne, whose website bills her as “textile enchantress” – I prefer textile whisperer.

How did you become interested in technology and fashion?

For me it’s about cross pollination and using different disciplines to inform your primary study. My undergrad degree is in neurophysiology, my masters is in architecture and so I incorporate and utilize a bunch of different philosophies, teaching, technology from all over those fields into my art.

How did you go from neurophysiology to architecture?

For me it was a very simple process. When you study the body you are looking at a cellular level. Those cells have basically every single component that a building has – a way to control and regulate temperature, cell membranes deciding what comes in and what doesn’t – just like a building’s skin. Cells have an energy system, circulatory paths, in the same way you would move through any built environment. I was just jumping scale, that’s all.

Tell me about Maker Faire. What pieces were included and why was it important to you?

Aniomagic designed a backpack that could sense how heavy it was, Meredith Scheff showed a skirt that indicated north by lit LEDs, really impressed with that…[Ed. note - other projects are feat. throughout the post]. The show to me was really important to do because a lot of us [in the etextile/wearable computer community] only know each other off the internet.  I had never met the majority of those people. We needed that fashion show – it was a big community builder.

Clockwise//top left: LED shrug by Grace Kim, Star skirt by Shannon Henry, making the weight-sensing backpack

Speaking of community, how many people are in this community, how many people are doing what you’re doing?

People are spread all over the world, it’s really grown in the last two years. How many of us?… I really wouldn’t know. But for example, one of the Eurovision contestants’ dress was done by Cute Circuits, it was an LED dress inspired by raindrops, the guy from the Talk2MyShirt blog received 200 emails that evening suggesting he blog that project.

And in wearable technology I see there’s kind of two camps, the aesthetic where it’s blingy and flashy but there’s nothing really beyond that. But with your haptic coat and these other projects the technology is there to serve some useful function  – where it gives the wearer an amplified sense or maybe a completely new sense…

I agree with you.  When you document a project that doesn’t have all the LEDs in it, doesn’t have all the flash and the bling, it’s very hard to show that it’s a computerized garment, so that’s one of the things.  I think there’s just as many people out there making adaptive technology, for lack of a better word, vs. the blink and bling, but blink and bling photographs better and videos better.

"Blink and bling" by Lynne

For me what’s interesting is the usefulness – are there any such garments that stand out to you?

I like all the projects. For instance, I can look at Shannon’s star skirt and really know what’s going on with it. Even though it’s connected to LEDs what’s really happening is she’s using an accelerometer and as that dress moves faster the lights are going to go brighter.

You can just as well hook that system up to a different type of sensor and reactor. Maybe you have a child that when they get upset or stressed out they spin and maybe you’ve designed a special project for them out of a garment where as they spin it plays a certain music to calm that child down.

So I look at all those projects and I think  – wow, this might  just be an LED bling but think of all the potential implications that it can turn into. I’m so impressed with all of the projects just in that the creators actually take the time to sit down and design and make it themselves. These projects really are not easy.

I’m sure! Were there other applications you’ve thought of?

For the north skirt, it can be some other type of garment that always tells you where north is, or you can begin to hook it up to different sensors, not necessarily a compass – for instance: an avalanche coat. Imagine: somebody who might be trapped in an avalanche can actually tell by vibration and know which way is up, and they might be able to dig their way up from 2 ft of snow and actually save themselves. I think there’s so much potential in all the projects –  I’m always looking for:  does it have a medical purpose, does it have a physiological purpose? Can we use it in therapy? Whenever I see projects I immediately begin adapting them.

One of the most exciting things for me when technology meets fashion is when the technology can’t be effective in any other way. Why should you make clothing that’s smart? What advantages does smart clothing have over just gadgets?

Approximately 98% of our lives we are physically touching a textile. In the shower you’re even touching a washcloth! So the idea of actually integrating the computer into textiles, into fabrics, into a garment makes perfect sense to me, not only because it is simpler to use that garment but because you can make that garment do so many more things.

Like one of my favorite examples is – there’s actually this technology out there – before you have a heart attack, you actually release chemicals on your skin.  If you have seizures, you release a different series of chemicals on our skin, say five minutes before you go into an epileptic seizure. They have those dogs that are trained to help someone who can sense those chemicals.

You can actually develop clothing now that has this ability and somebody has been doing it and testing it. So if I’m an ICU nurse and I’m standing there looking at my patients, and I see my patient’s gown turn from blue to red, I know that person’s in trouble even before the monitors are telling me that patient’s in trouble. It doesn’t really get any better than that.

Medical is definitely the area I think of too. Like your bat coat. Would you describe that?

I really like this coat a lot.

The explanation of the bat coat is more a story – I was at the Anchor Center for the Blind which is a new building here in Denver, CO and I’m at the opening of this facility and this little girl comes running up to me and starts fingering my coat and really feeling this fabric I had hand-designed – I can see this, I can see this, Mommy, I can see this! So this little girl and I end up in this discussion about how she wants to be a fashion designer. She’s blind and wants to be a fashion designer because it matters to her – what we look like and what is fashion and how I’m presenting myself and she dresses really, really well.

And so I came home that night and started thinking about her and what she would want and she became my hypothetical client. It was about how do you make something fashionable that other kids are going to love and also remove the aspect of her being identified as having a handicap? It became a wearable cane.

There’s an ultrasonic range finder that is always on pinging the environment and it feeds the info back to the Lilypad [the processor] and the Lilypad is programmed so that if it gets a certain response it means you are three feet from an object, and it will then turn the vibrator on to let you know there’s something in front of you.

It works just like a cane.

Is it washable?

It is washable. And so are the conductive thread and the e-textiles [cloth woven from conductive yarns].

Hand-woven conductive cloth by Lynne

Is there technology out there for powering these garments in terms of solar panels and the like?

We’re getting there. I saw a project recently for a university where the kids used a flexible solar panel on their jacket. It’s still so “frontier-land” and we’re still developing so many things. And part of it is the people who have the best technology are large industries. But the people who are making these inroads with making these things wearable are the do-it-yourself-ers, and that’s one of the reasons that fashion show was so important.  It began to pair off people. Intel was there. People are sending the video around saying we need partnerships, sponsorships, investors so we can move this forward.

It totally agree with you about “frontier-land.” In a way it’s the same way with sustainable fashion – people are experimenting now with re-use – making things that were never intended for that end use into textiles and at this stage it’s awkward, there are plenty of “new” textiles out there that no-one would really wear. But it’s really important to move through the first awkward stage – its the only way to get to elegant and beautiful – there are no shortcuts.

I think that’s where our scientific background [Ed. note: Lynne and I both got science undergrad degrees] helps us to think differently than most people. You and I are used to sitting in a lab going: mistakes, mistakes, mistakes, fail, success. We’re not afraid of that – we’re used to it -  it’s part of our lifestyle. I think in other industries it’s always based on success and you’re not given the room to experiment and fail.

That’s such an important point you just made. Definitely in fashion. Zero room to fail and you’re moving at a speed where there’s no time to experiment.

As a textile innovator I can’t do that! I need 2 months to sit down and just start weaving the next step in what is conductive fabric.

For you the big interest is conductive fabric?

Yes, for me it’s e-textiles. A lot of people are making wearable computers. So they’re taking already made garments and adapting the technology into that garment. Because I was raised in a family of textiles – everyone in my family weaves – I look at it as: there’s a better, faster way to do this. Let’s make the cloth conductive!

I feel like electricity and textiles will make some people (me) nervous …?

It’s a three volt [vs. the 120 V typical outlet] battery. Even if you stick your tongue to it it’s a very minor shock. But that is a very valid question and it’s something I’m asked frequently. Yes, you can wear it in the rain, I’ve worn mine in the rain, you can hand wash them, you take the battery out, and its very very low voltage.

Do most projects require about this much voltage?

I think my largest project needed 5 volts. It will get released this summer, it’s for a burlesque dancer – it’s around 400 LEDs! It’s a big feather dress and there’s accelerometers in her fan that bluetooth [short distance wireless technology] to the skirt. It’s technology that nobody [in the community] has gotten their hands on yet, the computer company is making some of the stuff for me as we do the project. It’s really really sexy and really really cool! Her fans will tell the skirt what blink pattern to manufacture.

You mentioned the Lilypad?

Lilypad was developed by Leah Buechley. It’s a piece of hardware, a micro-processor board – the first board ever done specifically to sew with. Instead of having terminals that you would solder something to it actually has little tiny holes that you put conductive thread through. The Lilypad broke everything open for wearable technology. Leah designed it in something like 2006.

I love the Lilypad when you’re doing very specific projects. It leaves room for someone to come in and make a smaller micro-processor that’s easier to program and has just as many little gizmos and gadget that you can hook up to it – and that’s Aniomagic –  their board is about the size of a nickel and that board is programmed off of their website – you can actually use your iPhone and hold it next to your board on your garment and it transmits the program. It’s a simpler program -  not nearly as powerful as the Lilypad but it does a lot of functions which are really important – the guy who did the weight sensing backpack was from Aniomagic. Those are pretty much the two big boards out there.

The Lilypad and a kit from Aniomagic

Do you use special equipment for putting this together?

Generally you’re putting the computer parts into the garment you’re sewing by hand. But I spin my own thread. I have different people throughout the US who actually spin the thread for me.

So what’s the advantage for spinning your own?

Well, it’s grey. When we’re spinning the thread we make it 2 or 3 ply with the conductive thread as the core. That serves a couple of purposes. One it looks better, two you’re actually insulating that thread and reducing the risk of your garment shortcircuiting.

So you consult with companies that make these products for e-clothing. What sorts of goals do these companies have in mind? Is it mostly research and development?

I’m assuming they’re moving towards something that they think is going to be happening in the future.

How do you see the future for this industry?

I am very interested in adaptive technology – in the medical and psychological adaptations of wearable computers. So in order for me to do this I’ll need to partner with Intel, Phillips, Apple,  Google…

So all these people you just mentioned are actually starting up or have wearable departments?

I don’t know if Google does but Phillips has had one for a long time, Apple just announced their wearable department in February or March of this year, Intel has one where they partner with different medical companies. Where Apple’s talking about running apps for wearable computers, Intel’s much more involved with: how do you integrate the computer directly into it – there’s so many layers where it could go. There’s a lot of schools that have opened up wearables departments. Leah teaches at MIT media lab.

Green by Design views sustainability in a broad all encompassing sense. What do you see as the intersection of sustainability, technology and fashion? How do these relate?

This is what I originally thought you were going to ask me about. I actually didn’t think you were going to ask me about my tech projects when you got in touch with me – I was a little surprised.

Well, my tech projects are released as creative commons – they can be made anywhere in the world out of resources that are readily available to anyone. So I could take my favorite coat, order those computer parts, and make my coat into the haptic bat coat. And make it specific to the cultural group that I’m involved with.

Adaptive technology projects to me are about: how do you make somebody feel better in their environment, in society, and I, as a designer sitting in Denver, cannot tell you in Moscow what the fashion is at that time. And in order for me to make the product and ship that product all the way across the world increases resources, increases time, increases money. And that’s why I release the projects that way – so that anybody can make them anywhere specific to their region.

So now I’m curious – what did you think I was going to ask you about?

The project I thought you were going to ask me about for sustainable design was the dresses I did back in 2003 – back then I was making a bunch of silk bias cut dresses and you know how much waste is associated with that. So I used my cutting scraps to make the fabric for the patchwork dresses and those are the ones that won all the awards.

The Bat Coat and one of Lynne's silk scraps patchwork dresses

I was aware of those dresses, that is a wonderful project, but I’ve been in the sustainable fashion arena a lot, I’ve seen it all, and there appears to be an upper limit with what novel/creative things you can do to reuse fabric.

But with technology, personally this is more interesting to me – well, the other thing is when I’m speaking with someone and I mention my education is in science, then there’s a different sort of dynamic than when I mention I’ve studied fashion design. I really want fashion to garner the same respect the scientific fields do and this to me was exciting because now clothing becomes something that is unarguable useful, I almost want to use the word philanthropic, it helps someone. You don’t normally think of fashion as helping someone.

For me, yes, the technology is cool but also I’m always looking for: how does fashion gain credibility? It’s exciting to me that it’s the vehicle you choose.

I love it! There isn’t a morning that I don’t wake up and I’m so excited to get to my studio and get started working – I’m thinking, how am I going to problem solve this…

How do you problem solve?! What happens when you get stuck?

You yell and scream and then you start over. I think it’s just like working with other technology and it’s why not everybody can sit down and make wearable technology. It takes a certain type of mentality – you have to be very logical. I think that’s why engineers are more successful at making these projects…but now we have a lot of crossover. For me, I’m so obsessed with making sure it looks good and making sure it looks good in that community because what I wear in Jamaica is not what I wear in Denver. How do I make this specific to my culture, to my peers, to what I want to say about myself?

That’s definitely a dimension that I think your typical electrical engineer wouldn’t even be aware of. It’s important though because at the end of the day you’re trying to help someone, not get them ostracized. Are there future projects in the works?

Well, the next big project coming out this summer is a coat designed for autistic children. I can’t say all the details yet. It actually uses grandma’s bedspread. It addresses the sensory overload common with autistic people. It has to be produced locally…it will also go out as creative commons.

I can’t wait to hear more! I’m actually tempted to make something of my own now!

You totally can! I’ve sent this stuff to 7 yr. olds!

Sweet. So if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be making a dress which utilizes adaptive optics to trick viewers into seeing you as 10 – 50 pounds thinner. Kidding! Anyhoo, to learn more about Lynne you can check out her website or follow her on twitter. Thanks so much, Lynne!