How smart are your clothes?

These clothes have a mind of their own.

Research from Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, may be taking the next quantum leap in textile design: computerized fabrics that change their color and shape in response to movement. Joanna Berzowska, professor and chair of the Department of Design and Computation Arts at Concordia, has developed interactive electronic fabrics that harness power directly from the human body, store that energy and then use it to change the garments’ visual properties—far beyond fabrics that change color in response to heat.

The major innovation in the “Karma Chameleon” project is the ability to embed these electronic or computer functions within the fiber itself, rather than being attached to the textile. Consisting of multiple layers of polymers, when stretched and drawn out to a small diameter, the fibers begin to interact with each other.

Now, that’s smart.