[Art_beyond_sight_learning_tools] Clever clothes that react with smell

[Shelley L. Rhodes]

smelling fashions?


CNN
Saturday, March 12, 2005

Clever clothes that react with smell

By Julie Clothier for CNN

Scent message communication tool "may be useful for visually and hearing 
impaired people".

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Of all the senses, smell is the most important to 
Jenny Tillotson.

It makes sense then that the British designer has dedicated much of her 
career researching the importance of scents and incorporating them into art.

Now, she is using her research and combining it with technology to create 
clothes and brooches that give off their own smell.

A far cry from the primitive-in-comparison "scratch and sniff" concept, 
Tillotson says her work is "about a new way of delivering scent in 
clothing."

Inspired by the superhero Spiderman, she began working on the "smart second 
skin" in 1997, as part of her postgraduate doctorate studies at London's 
Royal College of Art.

The dress has dozens of tiny tubes embedded into the design, which reacts to 
changes in the body's temperature, gives off a spray of perfume.

"It might be that the wearer is stressed, having a panic attack, their heart 
might be racing. The dress reacts to this and gives off a calming scent."

It can also be used as a fun device, she says, at parties when the wearer is 
trying to attract a lover.

Possible uses for her concept in future include medicine and the military, 
she says. "The clothing could detect when the wearer needs Ventolin if they 
are an asthmatic. That's the long-term potential," she says.

Eventually the concept will be subtle, and the technology will be discreetly 
woven into the fibres of the clothing.

She has also developed a set of two brooches that communicate with each 
other, the first reacts to breath and sends a message to the other to 
release a smell.

Her "scent by a wireless web" is a message communication tool, she says, 
which may be useful for visually and hearing impaired people whose sense of 
smell is often strong.

"It is a novel idea but it has a lot of potential. Smell is the most 
primitive sense and can remind us of all sorts of early memories, from 
school to our grandmother's house."

Tillotson says she is particularly interested in the "science of smell" and 
is not a "perfume junkie," at all.

"I'm interested in pheromones. It is a very futuristic concept but I do 
think it will take off."

The idea to explore scent came about almost 15 years ago when she was 
creating a "sensory" book as part of her undergraduate studies.

The one sense she was unable to recreate in the book was smell, and so she 
set about aiming to. Finally, she says, technology has caught up with her 
idea, making it possible to turn into a reality.

She is working with two scientists, Dr Gareth Jenkins, from Britain, and 
Prof Andreas Manz, from Germany, to develop the "smart second skin" dress 
further.

Now based in France with her fashion designer husband and three children, 
Tillotson has big plans for her concept and is hoping to get funding to 
carry out more research in the United States.

She is also a senior research fellow in fashion and textile at Central Saint 
Martins College of Art and Design's Innovation Centre, in London.

And her personal favorite smell? "The crown of a new-born baby. It's the 
most unique smell ever and one that none of the fragrance houses have been 
able to recreate."

"It serves its own purpose to distress new mums and dads by releasing the 
hormone oxytocin. It only lasts for three weeks though."


http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/03/11/spark.smell/index.html




--
BlindNews mailing list

Archived at: http://GeoffAndWen.com/blind/
Address message to list by sending mail to: BlindNews at blindprogramming.com

Access your subscription info at: 
http://blindprogramming.com/mailman/listinfo/blindnews_blindprogramming.com



-- 
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.7.2 - Release Date: 3/11/2005