From craft to production: Technology transfer in extreme textiles

Incredible innovations are being made in the world of textiles due to collaborations across disciplines that allow incorporation of technology and textiles. The author uses research she did to curate the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museumʹs 2005 exhibit Extreme Textiles: Designing for High Performance to further explore developments in textile engineering in aerospace, the military, athletics, and architecture that benefit from technology transfer, or moving a technology developed for one organization or environment into another. Through these collaborations, ways of using “smart” or “electronic” textiles, which can sense and react to their environments, have made significant advancements—developments that have proven useful not only in the field for which they are intended but across industries. Craft, particularly embroidery, is an important piece of this work, often providing the answer to the questions of, for example, how to keep circuitry closed, as with the Antennae Vest, or how to maintain aesthetics of conductive fabrics, as with the Fuzzy Light Switch. The author demonstrates how textiles, as a craft, fit easily with contemporary technology.