Interactive clothing has been around for a while. We recently wrote about clothing that changes colour and pattern, if pollution in the air is detected, but someone made a step further. Imagine your friend's clothing changing shape just because you look at it!

Created by Behnaz Farahi, this interactive wearable is actually a 3D-printed, gaze-actuated piece of clothing. The designer was thinking about the possibility of creating special outfits that would be able to recognize and respond to a person's gaze. 'Caress of the Gaze' is now able to do just that - "it can detect other people's gaze and respond accordingly with life-like behavior," explains Farahi. The second skin was fabricated with multi-material 3D printing using Objet500 Connex 3D printers that enable fabrication of composite materials. Added to the mix is Shape Memory Alloy actuators (SMA) that informs the motion of the skin.

Inspired by the way human skin reacts to various internal and external stimuli, the project aims at trying to create a fabric that would act as »an artificial skin capable of changing its shape and operating as an interface with the world, defining social issues such as intimacy, gender and personal identities.« The interactive fabric's aim is also to investigate ways of how "people's clothing could interact with other people as a primary interface using computer vision technologies." 

Combining fashion, art, technology, and design, this project represents a glimpse at the future possiblities of shape-changing structures and interactive systems, which is something we'll be soon seeing more and more of.

Caress of the Gaze from Pier 9 on Vimeo.