At Moscow Fashion Week, experts in technology and the development of non-standard solutions within the Tech in Fashion business program spoke about the latest breakthroughs in this area and discussed issues important for the development of technological fashion.

Among the speakers of the event were Kirill Orlov, CEO of SportDots, Andrey Kirikov, founder of FLARI, and Olavi Siikki, founder and engineer of WARMR startup from Finland.

Each of the manufacturers is preparing to take the market of "smart" clothing to a new level, to make it more accessible not only for the buyer, but also for companies involved in mass production.

Technological innovations such as functional sportswear to increase endurance, luminous fiber optic table textiles, electrically conductive synthetic fabrics, etc. are among the works presented.

WARMR founder Olavi Siikki presented to colleagues and guests a platform that will help designers and constructors integrate high-tech clothing details into their products.

According to Siikki, this does not require special skills in electronics or programming - any designer can implement the technology they like into their collection.

“We produce these technologies so that any designer or company can integrate it for themselves,” said Olavi Siikki, engineer and founder of the startup, in a conversation with RT.

The main development of the company is electronic textiles based on printed electronics technology.

Such a fabric has heating properties, while it does not cause problems in care - it can be washed, ironed and wrinkled - nothing will happen to it.

“It's a microelectronic film (complex, multi-layer printing on fabrics), but in the end it only weighs a couple of grams.

It is absolutely not felt, and it does not need any special care compared to analogues that our foreign colleagues now have on the market,” Siikki said.

At the same time, the charge for heating, according to the founder of the brand, can last up to eight hours of continuous operation.

Even at a temperature of -70 degrees, the thing copes with its function.

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“How much is enough depends on what kind of power bank you have, because electronics, like any phone, does not exist without energy.

We made a jacket for polar explorers that weighed half as much as usual and protected from frost in all its properties, it worked for eight hours without a break with three heating zones,” says Siikki.

In addition to smart clothing with a heating effect, a group of engineers, designers and technologists is working on the opposite effect - cooling, but so far there is not enough technology for aesthetic minimalism.

“At the moment, the technology is such that you can do cooling, but it will be some kind of cyberpunk with incomprehensible large elements.

It still does not meet the classic consumer properties.

But we are thinking about it, we will definitely do it,” Siikki promises.

Now the WARMR team is working on a major area - the integration of sensors and biosensors into the structure of fabric and clothing in general. 

“This will allow us to create some kind of medical devices that will constantly “track” our well-being: the content of glucose in the blood or, for example, potassium, magnesium.

This will make it possible to measure indicators using a non-invasive method,” the expert noted.

A technological solution for athletes was presented by SportDots CEO Kirill Orlov.

The company's arsenal includes clothes with special elements, which are made according to the principle of flat springs with a given degree of elasticity.

When interacting with the body, they catch micro-oscillations and repel them.

According to the developers, the invention can enhance endurance.

According to Kirill Orlov, this useful invention can be used not only for sports, but also for everyday walks.

FLARI offers the consumer to decorate their kitchen space with a textile product made of LED fabric.

According to Andrey Kirikov, initially table textiles were created for large events, for example, in foreign embassies, but over time, private clients began to appear.

“For them, we decided to create special tablecloths from luminous fabric.

These products have their own glow due to the fact that they use optical fiber.

Initially, this fabric does not glow, but after a certain processing, a glow appears, ”said Andrey Kirikov.

However, there are difficulties in using a luminous tablecloth - due to the properties of the fabric, the product cannot be compressed or folded.

“We're trying to design fibers that don't break when bent.

This is a rather complicated technology that requires time, special tools, electronics,” the expert explained.

According to the Russian State University named after A. N. Kosygin, which were demonstrated during the presentation, in the next three years, technologies such as artificial intelligence (45%), AR and VR (31%), biotechnologies (27%) will have the greatest impact on the Fashion Tech market. %).