You are probably familiar with the old saying, “You are what you eat” but how about, “You are what you tweet?” - The Printing Dress by Sheridan Martin Small and Asta Roseway

An exceptional work of craft and technology, The Printing Dress won Best Concept and Best of Show at the 2011 International Symposium for Wearable Computing’s, Design exhibition, in San Francisco, CA.

We met up with Asta after the exhibit to find out more about the concept. We learned that the winning dress pays homage to the evolution from the printed word to the digital age. The dress also exemplifies the exciting potential of text as fashion.

The Printing Dress is a retrospect to the printing press, while incorporating modern modes of communication like texting, Twitter, and social network sites like Facebook. Asta boldly
states, “Tomorrow we will be wearing what we say.” And with this transparency comes social
awareness. In the age of accountability you visibly and fully own your entries and interactions; in the digital landscape you wear what you think.

The Printing Dress is made almost entirely from paper with a laser cut, vintage typewriter keyboard on the skirt. When you want to share your ideas on twitter, not only do you tweet from your dress to cyber-land, you also wear your thoughts. Your phrases are projected onto the skirt screen and the text becomes a weave of cyber-text fabric.

The “capacitive keyboard” is made from 30 custom acrylic, laser cut keys and is powered by 4 Lilypad Arduinos. Sheridan Martin Small completed the impressive wiring shown here.

The ISWC exhibit displayed a brilliant array of interactive fashions from social media to adaptive technologies, all in fashion formats. It was inspiring to experience the futures of wearable computing combined  in one room.

Photos by Mathew Dean. peeperbox.com