Last Friday, I went (togehter with my colleague Niels) to the Smart Textiles Salon in Gent (Belgium). It was a workshop, were different prototypes were presented. What I really liked was the fact that it was a collection of initiatives from various backgrounds: very technical ones but also projects with a background in the arts).

A project, I liked very much was the one of Berit Greinke, called “SHHH…, Amplifying textiles”. She recently graduated from MA Textile Futures Course at St. Martins and presented in fact an adaptation of her MA project. The main idea behind her work is that it makes a connection between textiles and sound: a connection which isn’t very obvious. She made a machine which reads the charateristics of fabric and makes them auditorily perceptible.

DIESEL has made a collection for clubbers (Flash for Fun collection): Diesel Jeans, T-Shirt, Sneakers and even Underwear that glows under the fluo light. And if you want, you can share your fun-moments on the DIESEL-site or share their facebook group!

Source: NOTcouture, Diesel

Designer Milica Balubdzic came up with a new version of the traditional clothes hanger. She made a hanger out of aluminum which uses magnets for the affixing.

Source: PSFK

The Ralph Lauren Rugby brand launched  a “Make Your Own” iPhone application , by which consumers can create their own Rugby shirt directly from their iPhone, which  can now also be done through interactive store windows in select stores..

By using the application and the shop window, customers can customize a Rugby shirt  with patches and lettering,  buy it, email it, post it to Facebook or save it. But if you might wonder how you would look with that particular shirt, you can upload a photo and actually see how it fits you. And by shaking the application, you can change your skin tone ore later your haircut. Afterwards you can share it with others in a public gallery and even rate the creations of others.

On the interactive store windows, all of this can be done by touching the glass with your hand. This means you can customize a shirt at the store anytime day or night, without even going inside.

Source: PSFK, Ralph Lauren Rugby

Just 49 days until my birthday!! So if anyone wants to buy me the perfect birthday gift, check out the customization programme of Leica! I just customized my personal Leica M in just 9 steps and it looks like this …. unfortunately the price is also very impressive (4770 euros).

But as we all know: one has to pay for quality!!