Solar-powered Interactive Fashion

Element-ary by Tine Hertz

Power is an enormous problem when creating wearable technology. Two students, Tine Hertz and Maria Langberg from the Danish Design School tackled this issue head-on by developing a textile-based screenprinted solar panel that can be integrated directly into wearables.

Unplugged Textile Solar Cell

The solar textile was incorporated in a transparent organdi textile and can be manufactured using silkscreen printing techniques. Currently the textile is printed in 30x45cm pieces but can be made larger by sewing various modular cloth pieces together. This patent-pending design opens up myriad opportunities for interactive fashion.

Not only did these two talented ladies concept and engineer (with the help of researchers at Risø National Laboratory) this innovative e-textile, but they also each independently designed a piece of spectacular interactive fashion.

Element-ary(pictured above), an energy tool, by Tine Hertz, is a solar dress that converts light into electricity. The spirit of the design borrows from architecture, geometrical shapes and constructions inspired from buildings and landscapes. The result are two sophisticated and polished dresses that can be used as an alternative energy source.

Vigorous Energy

Vigorous Energy by Maria Langberg is built on the vary same concept — the dress as an alternative source of energy— but is inspired by a very different theme. Langberg reaches far back to Ancient Egypt and draws meaning from the scarab, a symbol of the sun god Ra, for the solar cell pattern. Her modernist fashions in ivory whites and creamy beiges are streamlined and chic.

The message from these projects are clear: fashion can be a means of harvesting and generating renewable energy without having to sacrifice form.