Diana Eng, the former Project Runway contestant whose futuristic, technology-infused fashions we profiled at CES in January, is now building out her own line of innovative, wearable accessories.
Eng began integrating electronics and other kinds of wearable technology with apparel after taking an “electronics for artists” course as an undergraduate at the Rhode Island School of Design. There, she gained not only technical skills, but also inspiration through exposure to designers like Issey Miyake and Martin Margiela, who taught Eng to think “innovatively and really outside of the box,” she says. Since then, Eng has done much of her design and technology research online.
We recently visited her workspace at NYC Resistor, a hacker collective in Brooklyn, where she showed us some of her latest work and the tools she used to create it.
Among the highlights were two pieces in her line of “Smart Scarves.” One, a $60 “Jack Frost” scarf, is made of a soft pale blue cotton upon which snowflakes appear beneath temperatures of 65 degrees Fahrenheit; the lower the temperature, the larger the snowflakes appear.
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The other is a deep violet, web-like scarf more suitable for spring. The scarf’s stitches follow the Fibonacci number pattern, a famous sequence of numbers in which each number equals the sum of the two preceding numbers (0,1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34…). It’s a pattern found frequently in nature, such as the distribution of seeds in a sunflower, and the spiral shape of a Nautilus shell. The scarf, which is made using a 3D knitting machine, is available for $275.
By far our favorite creation is a softly draped, battery-powered “twinkle dress” embroidered at the neckline with a microphone and small lights that flash in response to noise. Sadly, it’s not for sale, due to safety concerns and the difficulty of producing it on a mass scale. It is the perfect party dress; the more animated and talkative its wearer, the more attention she draws to herself with light. To see the dress in action, see the third look in the video below:
Eng created the twinkle dress for a project called Fairytale Fashion, an educational web series that details many of the techniques used in Eng’s technology-infused clothing. She was also a featured guest on PBS show SciGirls, teaching young girls how to use microcontrollers, accelerometers, conductive thread and other tools to create inflatable skirts and light-up dresses.
In our interview, Eng joked that the best way to bridge the gender gap in the tech industry was to teach girls how to make things sparkle. “They’re going about it the wrong way,” she said, laughing.
All of Eng’s work is handmade, and thus produced in small quantities of ten to one hundred that quickly sell out, Eng says, before she even has time to begin promoting them. Eng is looking into getting some of her accessories manufactured by third parties to satisfy existing demand.
Eng is also the author of do-it-yourself electronic fashions book, Fashion Geek: Clothes Accessories Tech is also available for purchase on her website.
Check out the gallery below for a closer look at her work and the NYC Resistor studio. If you’re interested in exploring further kinds of wearable tech, see our recent roundup here.
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