They have taken solar fashion from the catwalk to the High Street, with an attractive yet practical garment that people could wear everyday.
Solar panels look cool in photographs but to wear those panels on your clothes? Sounds pretty uncomfortable. Wearable technology has always been predicated on the fact that little bits of wire, glass and electronics have somehow been made comfortable enough to put on our bodies. But solar technology, despite whatever aesthetic and gadget – charging potential it may have, just hasn’t been that wearable. Until now. Designer Pauline van Dongen recently released an experimental line of clothes that harnesses the power of the sun to charge small gadgets like your phone. Enabling constant connectedness through your clothes is a feat in and of itself. But even better? You might actually want to wear these things.
Pauline van Dongen is one of the leading names in wearable technology, and her design
shows how technology and fashion can complement each other to create desirable clothing that has a function! Under bright sunlight, the shirt produces around 1W of electricity, which is enough to charge a typical phone in a few hours. The shirt can charge smartphones, cameras, GPS systems and other USB compatible handheld or portable devices. Electricity can be stored for later use in the shirt’s battery pack, invisibly located in the front pocket. The silver solar panels sewn onto the shirt actually look like metallic embellishment. This shirt does not need to go through any special cleaning process, because it’s machine washable. Cool, isn’t it?