Digital protection – air pollution and UV sensing dress

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We think of dresses as passive items that we put on and then forget about. However, Fashion designer Kid Wang (王彥熙) challenged that concept with a dress that can respond to the wearers environment, specifically, warning if the air quality or UV light exceed safe limits (被動式防護衣).

Part of the function of clothes is to provide protection; from the heat or the cold, or the sun, or protect our skin from scratches and numerous other things. Extending this idea Kid’s dress monitors the air around the wearer and if the level of harmful organic chemicals exceeds a safe threshold the garment flashes a warning using multicoloured LED’s filling the dress with light. The dress also contains a UV sensor, again watching to see if the wearers is close to too much exposure.

The following video illustrates the garments development and shows it working.

Kid is a rare example of a fashion designer who is as comfortable coding and soldering as he is designing and dress making
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