This article was taken from the August 2014 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Clothes can communicate many things: style, social status, allegiance to a sports team. Now they can help us emote. San Francisco-based designer Kristin Neidlinger blends haute couture with sensors -- from heart rate monitors to EEG headsets -- to tap into our feelings.
The GER Mood Sweater gauges its wearer's emotions and displays them as five colours. Four hand-held sensors measure galvanic skin response, causing LEDs in the collar to light up accordingly -- moving from green when calm to pink and red when excited or aroused. The aim is to display how you're feeling, with the collar designed to direct the coloured light back at the wearer. "It gives you instant feedback," says Neidlinger, 40. "Sometimes I wear it and think, 'Oh god, I've gone bright red!' It's like blushing."
A former dancer, Neidlinger worked as a physical therapist before studying interaction design at the California College of the Arts. Though more designer than programmer, she believes wearable technology can help enlighten our senses -- or highlight behaviour that, as in the case of emotion, we often have no conscious control over.
Sensoree is preparing 100 GER Mood Sweaters for sale this summer. And although her latest designs -- such as the Neurotiq headdress, which illuminates based on brain activity -- are fashion focused, they retain a medically minded approach. The sweater, for example, could help people with autism understand both their own and others' emotions, and the InflataCorset expands in response to an elevated heart rate and exerts pressure on the torso to help calm the wearer down. "We're between healthcare, technology and fashion," says Neidlinger. "Combining the three creates something new."
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