A study of smart textiles in fashion and clothing

Abstract

Abstract: This report covers different projects, research as well as commercial projects, within smart textiles and clothing, with a certain focus on European activities. Each project is categorized as EU-project, University project not funded by EU and commercial projects. All information is based on literature studies, inquires from the Baltic Fashion Partners and search for projects in project databases. The collected material shows that there are research initiative on both European and national levels. In these projects there has been a focus on medical applications and applications concentrated on enabling technologies. Despite an extensive research effort in several projects for over 10 years there are only few smart textile products on the market. In earlier investigations technical and production aspects are explained as barriers for the commercialisation of smart textiles. Fashion is rarely mentioned as a potential area for smart textiles. However, in this report it is most of the companies that are found are deals with fashion. The companies are certainly small and several authors dismiss the potential in their applications as more or less uninteresting.