clothing

Design new clothes in Flash with the hoodie-o-matic

New York based Neighborhoodies has a cool new tool for people who are all about customization called the "hoodie-o-matic." Like services that let you custom design clothing to sell to others, you can create an entire garment in your browser and see the results in real time as you toggle various options.

The results aren't actually a new service offering. In fact, the previous system would let you do the same thing, although it was a series of drop-down menus, the result of which you'd only see once you received the garment. The new system takes … Read more

What to do when the executive has no clothes

Technology executives are notorious for their out-of-proportion egos and hot-headed tempers. Michael Dell, Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs-- even Andy Grove--are all members of a long list of distinguished high-tech executives who are famous for not suffering fools lightly, among other things.

But what happens when they're the fools? What happens when a high-powered executive has his head up his you-know-what and has lost all sense of objectivity? What happens when a gutsy employee speaks up? Well, in many cases he gets his head chopped off for his trouble. In shrink speak this is called transference, which in this case means unconsciously taking one's own feelings of inferiority and guilt out on another.

Given a choice, the vast majority of people would rather forgo the whole decapitation thing rather than declare that "the emperor (or should I say executive) has no clothes." Not surprisingly, this phenomenon is rampant in the technology industry.… Read more

Survive assassination attempts in style

Bulletproof vests are so 1990s. Sure the vests save lives, but sometimes police, diplomats, and general targets of gunfire and knife fights need something a little more fashion forward. That's why Miguel Caballero's bullet-resistant clothing line exists at the crossroads of style and security.

The Colombia-based designer boasts actor Steven Seagal and the president of Colombia as wearers of his designs, which started selling in London's upscale Harrods department store this month. His products include polo shirts, blazers, raincoats, and suede jackets for women and men. Unlike bulky vests, Caballero says the attire is light, flexible, and … Read more

The 404 127: Where Justin gets his wardrobe off eBay

All the bizarre stories on today's show throw us into a rollercoaster of emotions. We start off innocent enough, begging Rick Moranis to do more movies, but then quickly spiral into flora weaponry, gender identity and male pregnancy, heartbreaking eBay auctioneering, and the difficulty in "Shorty" pimpery. We also come to the sobering realization that we've been duped...AGAIN! This must stop. EPISODE 127 Download today's podcast

Digital clothing takes center stage at S.F. Exploratorium

SAN FRANCISCO--A man wearing costumes covered head to toe in LEDs. Another man wearing a suit made of bubble wrap. A woman in a skirt made of Snickers wrappers. And a woman in a dress that generates power when she moves.

This was opening night of the 2nd Skin exhibit, a celebration of "imaginative designs in digital and analog clothing," at the Exploratorium here. And if the best and brightest in clothing embedded with technology and pure cacophony weren't on hand tonight, I can't even imagine where else they might be.

I didn't know quite … Read more

Slash-resistant T-shirt keeps knives at bay

If you're going to wear knife-resistant clothes around town, you may as well look sharp doing it (sorry, no more bad puns for the whole rest of this blog). Nihon Uni, a Japanese uniform manufacturer, has created a T-shirt that promises to provide at least some stab protection.

The cloth is made of a polyethylene fiber that's allegedly equal to aramid fiber used in body armor, according to the Daily Yomiuri. But if the picture to the left is any indication, the shirt's not as sci-fi/armor-ey looking as one might expect. Plus, it's machine-washable.

Nihon … Read more

A secret to drying clothes? Liquid

Clothes dryers are the second biggest hog of household energy, according to the Department of Energy. Most are so similar in terms of power hunger that the Energy Star label of efficient appliances doesn't even mark dryers.

By this fall, however, consumers could enjoy faster, greener, and safer clothes dryers that draw half the power of conventional models, according to Hydromatic Technologies Corporation.

Its Dryer Miser technology would dry garments 41 percent more quickly without shrinking as much or stinking them up with the odor of burnt lint, said Michael Brown, the inventor and company president.

He plans to … Read more

Time waster: Cloth made by robots

While having a fast gaming rig lets you experience games with high frame speeds and ridiculous polygon counts, there are some simple pleasures in the realm of Flash gaming. For such an endeavor, check out this cloth physics simulation created by Web developer Jeff Nusz.

The "tool" (as I'll call it loosely, since you're likely not worried about air speed effects on large pieces of cloth frequently enough to use it) lets you futz about with an imaginary cloth that can be resized and put up against a fan. You can tune the speed of the … Read more

A pair of suspenders for your iPod

It may not seem like it in the middle of January, but you won't always need to protect yourself from the elements with heavy-duty MP3 outerwear. Before you know it, mini-skirt weather will be right around the corner.

But music-playing suspenders? That, at least, is what the wrongly named "MP3 Smart Jacket" appears to be. Like other holsters of its kind, it has compartments for various gadgets that can be controlled by sewn-in buttons, according to Gadgetell, but it also has its own built-in speakers. Even so, this thing makes the gadget vest look like haute couture.… Read more

Closet Assistant attempts easy Web wardrobe management, social networking for turtlenecks

I once had a French teacher in high school who--legend has it--purchased about a hundred pairs of the same shoe in the same size after deciding it was the best pair of shoes he had ever worn, and calculating the wear rate combined with his life expectancy. For him, my guess is that picking out what pair of shoes he wanted to wear each day was not an issue, but for everything else, maybe he could have benefited from a service called Closet Assistant, which as the name suggests is a system to help you pick out what clothes to … Read more