THE FUTURE DESIGN DIRECTION OF SMART CLOTHING DEVELOPMENT

Literature indicates that Smart Clothing applications, the next generation of clothing and electronic products, have been struggling to enter the mass market because the consumers’ latent needs have not been recognised. Moreover, the design direction of Smart Clothes remains unclear and unfocused. Nevertheless, a clear design direction is necessary for all product development. Therefore, this research aims to identify the design directions of the emerging Smart Clothes industry by conducting a questionnaire survey and focus groups with its major design contributors. The results reveal that the current strategy of embedding a wide range of electronic functions in a garment is not suitable. This is primarily because it does not match the users’ requirements, purchasing criteria and lifestyle. The results highlight the respondents’ preference for personal healthcare and sportswear applications that suit their lifestyle, are aesthetically attractive, and provide a practical function. Introduction Smart Clothing, one branch of Wearable Computers, is defined as all clothes made with intelligent textiles. Experts agree that ‘intelligent’ or ‘smart’ means an ability to sense stimuli from the environment, and then react or adapt behaviour to the circumstances (Baurley, 2003). According to the manner of reaction, smart textiles can be categorised into three groups: passive smart, active smart and very smart (Zhang and Tao, 2001; Van Langenhove and Hertleer, 2003). Passive smart textiles can only sense stimuli from the environment; active smart textiles can sense and react accordingly; very smart textiles can sense, react and adapt themselves to the environmental conditions. In most cases, Smart Clothes are designed to sense user requirements and environmental contexts, and provide appropriate service at the right time and place accordingly with minimum effort required from the users to operate (Marzano, 2000). In this research, Smart Clothing only refers to garments and fashion accessories that contain intelligent functions based on electronic technologies. Smart Clothes and Wearable Computers bring a large number of product opportunities; as Venture Development Corporation estimates that it will grow more than 50% each year through to 2006 and its shipment will reach 563 million dollars in 2006 (Broersma, 2002). Nevertheless, this market research emphasises that the true potential of Smart Clothing can only be reached if improvements are made in consumer-based products. Although great deal of improvements are made in terms of technical aspects, Smart Clothes are struggling to gain social acceptance because they fail to follow the norms of the social interaction (Edwards, 2003). In order to improve a design process, Krose (2002) stresses that it is unavoidable to study an outcome of the process or a product and its nature. However, Uotila, et al (2003) note that Smart Clothing is an entirely new product and the users’ needs have not been realised. Since the design direction remains unclear, it is difficult to improve product development and commercialisation. This situation expresses a pressing need for a clear design approach and better understanding of the consumers. Thus, this research aims to identify future directions in the design approach to Smart Clothing that match user profile and lifestyle. Since users are largely unaware of Smart Clothing products, the investigation focuses on their lifestyle and vision of the future. In addition, the purchasing criteria of the related fields, e.g. electronic and apparel goods are examined. Background Research The research structure reported for this paper is based on the findings of the previous investigations, namely a literature review (see Ariyatum and Holland, 2003) and in-depth interviews with key developers within the Smart Clothing field (see Ariyatum, Holland and Harrison, 2004). The results of the previous studies are briefly summarised below. Result of Literature Review The literature review was conducted to identify the design evolution and trends in Smart Clothing development. Information as well as images of the current research and development projects from different teams were collected and put on a timeline chronologically (see figure 1). Results from the comparison and analysis conducted with the current projects reveal that the design evolution was divided into three periods. 1. In the first period, 1980s to 1997, the design approach was regarded as technologydriven, since most research and developments focused on Wearable Computing and applications of advanced technologies (see, for example, Mann, 1996; Orth, Post and Cooper, 1998). For instance, Randell (2001) predicted that integrating sensing and displaying technologies could bring a lot of opportunities to textile manufacturers. Thus, the researcher and his team developed ‘CyberJacket’, which integrated location sensors (GPS), displays, etc, to demonstrate the possibilities. Nevertheless, this prediction was based on the trends of miniaturisation of electronic devices not consumer requirements. Whether people carry electronic devices around means they want these devices to be part of their clothes and operate unobtrusively without the user being conscious of it is debatable. Furthermore, the inputs from fashion design and business were neglected. Therefore, the products were more ‘portable’ rather than ‘wearable’, for example, MIT’s wearable computer (O’Mahony, 2002). 2. In the second period, 1998 to 2000, the awareness and involvement of the fashion and textile sector significantly rose. Consequently, the number of the collaborative projects between electronic and fashion fields rapidly increased, for example, the Cyberia project (Rantanen, et al, 2000). Moreover, experts in textile and clothing started to create their own research and development (Braddock and O'Mahony, 1998). For instance, the Haute Couture designer, Alexandra Fede, worked with Du Pont and Mitsubishi Materials Corporations to develop the collections incorporating advanced technologies. Although the applications became more wearable, most outcomes were still prototype garments, as the technologies were underdeveloped, e.g. Philips and Levi’s ICD+ jacket (Meoli and May-Plumlee, 2002), and SCOTT eVast (Forman, 2001). Besides, product concepts, e.g. having optical fibre screen on clothes (see Gould, 2003; France Telecom, 2003), did not match requirements of the mass market. 3. In the third period, 2001 to 2004, the number of Smart Clothes available in the market increased dramatically, e.g. The North Face’s MET5 jacket (Ward, 2001), Adidas’s smart shoes (Momphard, 2004) and GapKid’s sweatshirts with embedded FM radio Prof. Mann started Cyberman project MIT Media Lab started MIThril project (1996) Sensatex and US military started the project Philips and Levi’s started Wearable Electronics project MIT Media Lab started Fabric Computing Interface project Bristol University published Wearable Computing project Brunel University’s Sensory Fabric project published in July 1998 ElekTexTM or Eleksen found in September 1998 Reima Tutta set up Clothing+ and started Smart Clothing projects MIT Media Lab, IDEO and BMW started project together in September 1999 Central St. Martins College of Art and Design’s started MA Textile Future Starlab’s i Wear Intelligent Clothing Consortium started in 1999 Charmed Technology started Brave New Unwire World Fashion Show Enlighted Design Inc presented Illuminated Clothing in April-May 2000 SOFTswitchTM Ltd. developed and presented SOFTswitchTM technology MIT’s MSc thesis in intelligent clothing field was submitted in June 2000 Tampere University carried out the Survey of intelligent textile Infineon Technology and Master School of Fashion (Munich) presented Wearable Electronics range in April 2002 ICEWES set up High-Tech Fashion Network Motorola Inc. presented wearable concepts called Smart CommunicationTM Pioneer Corporation and fashion companies started Media Fashion Project in March/April 2001 Mmode Group started in July 2001 and presented Smart Materials Research in September 2001 Panasonic and Polo Jean Co launched Tech Style collection in Fall 2001 Tokyo University’s Transparent Clothes was published on BBC News website in February 2003 Had 1st conference in December 2002 Cornell University’s Smart Jacket was presented in ICEWES’s Conference in 2002 1st wave 2nd wave France Telecom presented its first functional prototype in May 2000 KSI’s Smart Wear was first employed at German Championship in Athletics Worked with Frog Design (2003) Unveiled in August 1999 and sold first ICD+ in September 2000 Presented concepts (2000) and launched wearable products since 2001 Fashion Show was organised again in 2000 Presented and published in 2000 and set up IFM in 2001 198