The next big thing in fashion may be vibrating clothes that create different sensations on your skin – like clouds, water or rocks – to make you feel calmer, stronger or more confident.
Clothing has traditionally served to project images to the outside world, like attractiveness, wealth or professionalism. But Ana Tajadura-Jiménez at Charles III University of Madrid, Spain, and her colleagues wondered if it could also be engineered to change how we feel on the inside.
To explore this idea, they sewed tiny vibrating motors – each 10 millimetres wide and 3 millimetres thick – into jersey fabric, fluffy polyester or smooth polyester. They programmed the motors to vibrate in specific patterns by connecting them via wires to a pocket-sized control board and battery pack.
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The researchers placed the materials on the arms, backs or hands of 29 people and tested how different vibration patterns – like movement up or down the arms, towards the middle or sides of the back, or in expanding or contracting circles on the palms – made them feel.
The volunteers were asked to describe their feelings according to a number of terms – soft, cozy, cold, warm and so on. Based on the words the volunteers chose, the researchers placed their response to the clothing into one of three categories: cloud, rock and water. For instance, if someone described their sensations as soft, cozy and warm, their response was placed in the cloud category.
Certain patterns tended to produce similar sensations. For example, vibrating patterns radiating from the middle to the sides of the back tended to elicit reactions that fell in the water category. Contracting circles on the palms were more likely to lead to reactions in the rock category, while expanding circles prompted responses that fell into the cloud category. The type of material also had an effect, with vibrations passing through fluffy polyester feeling more “watery” and smooth polyester feeling more “rocky”.
Sartorial sensations
The researchers have also created a tight-fitting dress embedded with vibrating motors that were programmed to create similar cloud, water or rock sensations on people’s bodies. They haven’t formally tested it yet, but they noticed that the woman they fitted the dress to spoke more slowly and calmly when they switched on the cloud pattern, and more hurriedly when they switched on the rock pattern, which is consistent with their earlier findings. “We now want to test it on more people,” says Tajadura-Jiménez.
The work is part of a broader movement to design clothes that can be “experienced” rather than passively worn, she says. For example, other designers have created a shirt that gives the wearer “hugs”, another shirt that vibrates to improve posture and a scarf that relaxes the neck and chest by creating a tingling sensation on the skin.
Clothes that can be experienced may revolutionise fashion, says Kristi Kuusk at the Estonian Academy of Arts, who co-designed the vibrating dress. In the coming years, people may be able to “wear” emotions created by fashion designers or program their own clothes to elicit feelings like happiness, calmness, strength or confidence, she says.
“I think clothes have so much potential for caring for us, both physically as well as mentally,” she says.
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