Jean Zeid 06:54, March 15, 2024
Every morning, Jean Zeid delivers the best in terms of innovation.
This Friday, February 15, he returns to a high-tech dress that adapts to the heat.
It's time for Jean Zeid's Positive Initiatives, the chronicle of daily innovations. Jean, hello.
This morning, we're talking about a dress that adapts to the heat.
A high-tech dress with a cut and style that changes depending on the weather.
An innovation that comes to us from the United States where researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created this one-piece dress whose cut and style evolve in the presence of heat.
Obviously, it is difficult not to see it as an alternative to fast fashion.
In 2025, 150 million packages entered the United States benefiting from a customs exemption.
In 2022, there were nearly 700 million packages entered, a third of which came, according to analyzes by the American Congress, from two Chinese companies: Shein and Temu.
Fashion is great, we're not here to preach.
And at the same time, it is very polluting whether on the manufacturing or transport side.
Polluting, water-intensive, not respectful of workers... Fast fashion which has been the subject of a bill aimed at fighting against this model in the National Assembly since yesterday.
Hence the idea of evolving clothing.
The innovation of researchers from the Self-Assembly Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (the famous MIT) and whose work is supported by a ready-to-wear brand Ministry of Supply;
these researchers are trying to propose another model.
The dress has a little name: the 4D Knit Dress, I'm not sure it's very popular actually.
the 4D Knit Dress is a knit dress whose shape adapts to all body types, and whose style evolves upon contact with heat.
To achieve this feat, the researchers used active polyester yarns, active because they shrink when exposed to high degrees of heat, creating a tight or cinched appearance.
The system can also be used to respond to different sizes or stylistic preferences of the consumer.
In a public trial conducted, it took approximately 35 minutes for the robotic heating arm to completely transform the dress to make it form-fitting.
Except that polyester is not really the ideal material for the environment.
No, and that is the paradox of this research.
The dress's active fibers are polyester and the base fabrics are a blend of viscose and polyester, no biodegradable yarn in sight.
For what ?
Because it is thanks to the synthetic fibers that this dress somehow comes to life.
There remains the path of recycling with research carried out to create parts in polyester or nylon that can be entirely recycled in a single piece, without having to separate the threads from the fabric for example.
Still, the 4D Knit Dress is promising, less for its ability to compete with fast fashion than to create adaptive clothing capable of adapting to fashion and climate.