Wearable tech: This dress uses graphene to light up when you breathe
(CNN)The little black dress just got revamped.
Together with scientists, fashion designers have used graphene — a Nobel-Prize winning material that’s tougher than diamonds — to give their LBD a high-tech cut.
“We are trying to showcase the amazing properties of graphene,” Francesca Rosella, the co-founder of fashion company CuteCircuit, told CNN.
“If you look under an electron microscope, you can see how the structure of graphene is made up of what looks like hexagonal crystals. We used that structure as a starting point to design the dress.”
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In January, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used computer modeling to design a new — currently nameless — material: a sponge-like configuration that is just 5% the density of steel and about 10 times as strong.
This makes it both extraordinarily light but able to carry heavy loads — properties that make graphene ideal for future use in design or architecture.
For the moment, CuteCircuit’s LBD has only made use of small amounts of graphene as the expensive material isn’t yet mainstream.
So while the dress provokes thought on the future uses of graphene, it’ll still be some time before clothes combined with the material hit the mall.
Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/31/fashion/graphene-carbon-dress-wearable-technology/index.html