Interactive Wearable Technology Inspired By Chameleons
Animals and the environment interact as one, but exotic animals and the urban environment exist in ulterior universes. Design quartet Drap og Design have harmonised the two, whilst creating a potentially awesome piece of wearable technology.
As four recent graduates from Oslo school of Architecture and Design, Drap og Design wanted to kick off their collective with what they describe as a “cool” product. They started with the aim of providing an environment for people to interact with the world as animals, because animals have some pretty unique ways of doing this. They say, “our goal was not to replicate the powers of the animals… We wanted to give the users the idea and the concept of the interaction animals have.”
Choosing the chameleon as their main source of inspiration, the Norwegian team have created an “Interacket”. It provides a gateway for the wearer of the jacket to interact with their surroundings. They do this by using an embedded layer of LEDs wired to Arduinos (computer micro controllers which can be programmed.) Thanks to the Arduinos, the jacket appears to temporarily absorb the colour of whatever object the wearer places their hands on. The wearer can also place their hands on two separate colours to really get the party started.
Despite the random materials used for the design of the jacket (painter overalls, emergency foil blankets, black gloves) it somehow manages to remain on-point with current streetwear aesthetics. So is the streetwear community ready for a technicoloured dream coat?
