Crave

(Credit: A Dress A Day)

I don't know who you are, Erin, but this Tetris Dress that you made makes me kind of want to marry you. There isn't much more to say about this great garment than that. And sorry, people, but it's a one-of-a-kind, so you can't buy one. But if you're the crafty type you can get the fabric here and make your own fashion tribute to the iconic '80s puzzle game. I really hope this becomes a trend.

Erin, call me?

Update: Dillyeo is already sold out of the shirt, but eagle-eyed reader pigmond found an even better deal: $11.67 shipped from DealExtreme!

Geek meets chic? Um, no. But if you're in the market for a simple Halloween costume or you're hip enough to pull off wearing this to a club or party, Dillyeo has a sound-activated equalizer T-shirt for $11.97, plus $5 for shipping.

Maybe you've seen this before: it's the same shirt ThinkGeek has been selling for $39.99. Check out the video to see it in action. (Note: The accompanying Kanye West song may have a few NSFW lyrics.)

Dillyeo is one of those deal-a-day sites, and this one ends around 10 p.m. ET tonight.

The hand-wash-only shirt is available only in X-large size, but Dillyeo says they run small, so if you normally wear a large, you should be good to go.

I'll cop to owning the similar Wi-Fi detector shirt (on sale at ThinkGeek for $19.99, FYI), which I wore a couple years ago as part of my "tech support" Halloween costume. (It rocked.)

Like that shirt, the equalizer is fun, a conversation piece, and a way to stand out in a crowd--and it's on sale for the same price as a nonanimated, nonbattery-operated shirt. What's not to like?

Fabric markers give a black and white dress new life.

(Credit: Sander Marsman)

(Credit: Sander Marsman)

Normally, it would be contraindicated to take a marker to your dress. Not so with Color-in-Clothing, which you'll actually want to mark up. That's the way you give it color and infuse it with your own sense of style.

The customizable garb is the result of a collaboration between Dutch fashion designer Berber Soepboer and Dutch graphic designer Michiel Schuurman.

We're waiting to find out if and where the striking dress in the photos can be purchased, and if you can safely remove the markings if you're considering a whole new look.

Do note that you'll want to use a fabric marker rather than, say, a highlighter pen or your kids' crayons. Just be sure to color inside the lines--or not, if that's more in keeping with with your fashion aesthetic.

(Update 9:59 a.m. PDT: Soepboer tells us the dress isn't yet available for purchase, but should be soon. We'll keep you posted!)

(Via InventorSpot)

Lazy bums rejoice over tablecloth sweatpants

(Credit: Mitemite)

I know these are still in beta, and I'm all for silly fashion statements, but I have to take a second to expound on the ridiculousness of these "Lazy Sunday Pants."

To the layman, these pants by Spanish design studio Mitemite appear to be your normal pair of loungey sweatpants, perfect for wearing outside to wash the car or get a quick bite at a local McDonalds, right?

Nope. Take a look again, but this time use your lazy eye. The pants come with their own built-in remote control pocket, and that's not even the best part. They also feature little red and white gingham tablecloths that Velcro onto your lap for worry-free dining.

Now aside from the fact that you could save yourself some dough and just use, uh, any piece of cloth ever to cover your lap, I'm wondering what kind of person would get real use out of this. How big of a slob do you have to be to need this kind of double-layer protection? Is our species so lazy that we'd rather have detachable clothing instead of just throwing a whole pair of pants in the wash?

I'm disgusted and ashamed, although I'm sure feral children everywhere are furiously crawling their way to Spain right now to get a pair. Everyone else should get off their butt and just grab a napkin.

Lazy Sunday Pants are slob-approved

I arrrrrrrrrr cold!

(Credit: Mike Karikas)

Some of you have beards. I know, I've seen them. Now, I know this isn't a gadget per se, but it's not fashion, either. It's got a function. You need to protect and care for your beards, lest you lose your Linux admin superpowers.

Meet Beard Head, the hat that gives you a warm layer of artsy hair to cover your face in the cold.

Anyone looks good in one, or at least hairier.

(Credit: Matt Hickey)

My editor mentioned these to me and I jumped at the chance to write about them as my friend Michael Karikas just got a Beard Head and wore it out a couple nights ago. Being me, I had my camera and took photographs.

Michael actually wears it snowboarding, so his is for Serious Business, but anyone in a cold area could benefit from the warmth a beard and 'stache can provide. They come in four styles: Lumberjack (brown), Viking (yellow), Pirate (black), and Grandpa (gray), and only cost $24.99.

That may seem high to some of you, but having handled one of these things I can attest to how well-made they are. Not only that, but they're customizable. For $4.99 more, you can make the 'stache a fu manchu-style, with more styles coming soon. I'm looking forward to the Mario version.

The Paniq controller lets you play, pause, and adjust the volume on your iPod--via the "smart fabric" on your garment.

(Credit: QIO Systems)

Sometimes--like when it's freezing out or you're speeding along on your bike--it's not very convenient to take out your gadget and fumble with the controller. A new wearable electronics system called Paniq lets you do the controlling straight from your clothes, which could make things easier (or not).

The Paniq controller uses a 30-pin connector to link your iPod to Paniqmode interactive duds.

(Credit: QIO Systems)

By connecting Paniq modules to Paniqmode interactive garments, you can control your iPod or other gizmo via smart-fabric buttons integrated into the garb.

The Paniq system is not unlike the Zegna iJacket, whose sleeve buttons feature play/pause, volume, off/on and backward/forward track controls.

But given that New York-based QIO Systems, Paniq's maker, has teamed with a range of clothing manufacturers to produce Paniq-compatible garments, you'll have a fair amount of choice when it comes to the smart duds you don. (Partners include Cole Haan, Zoo York, Killa, iQuantum, Celio, Beaucre, and Bailo.)

Paniqmode clothes support electronics including iPods/iPhones, Bluetooth mobile phones, AM/FM radio, and even walkie-talkies. The Paniq controllers cost $20, weight about a tenth of an ounce, and come in several colors and styles. They're available from apparel and electronics retailers, or from Paniq's online store.

Related story:

Zegna's 'iJacket' lets you talk to the coat

(Credit: Cool Hunting)

That hat you see to the right is smokin'. No, it literally is. Chilean fashion designer Alexandra Guerrero made it from recycled cigarette butts.

Through her new company, Mantis, Guerrero combines purified smokes with natural wool to form a raw, textured material that can be woven into garments with a surprisingly appealing modern macrame flair.

Of course, as cute as the finished products may be, it's hard to imagine nonsmokers wearing Guerrero's creations without experiencing a significant ick factor. Still, you have to applaud the designer's creative contribution to the everyday-objects-from-recycled goods oeuvre.

"This project began as an idea for my thesis," she told the blog Cool Hunting. "We always wanted to do sustainable design but we didn't want to do something that was already seen, so we started thinking of a waste that was unnoticed and then we thought of cigarette butts."

The clothes can be purchased via e-mail from the Mantis Web site and range in price from $50 for a hat to $125 for a sweater. Hey, you'd probably pay more for a sweater at Bloomingdales or BCBG. And you wouldn't be helping to clean up the streets.

(Credit: Cool Hunting)

Bulletproof and fashion-forward coats are among the products by designer Miguel Caballero.

(Credit: Miguel Caballero)

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 comfortable. Some of the garments also come with stab-resistant lining.

But, as should be expected with any designer dress, the shirts and coats come at a high price. Some items start at about $2,000, though Time magazine said the clothing can cost as much as $9,800. Customers can choose from three levels of protection, and the highest level is claimed to resist shots from 9mm handguns up to mini Uzis.

Though the clothing is not yet available in the U.S., celebrities can probably get a hold of some of Caballero's life-saving garments. And if they have any doubts about the products' integrity, Caballero may offer to shoot or stab them just to prove his point.

A man wearing a costume covered in green LEDs at the Exploratorium for the opening night of the 2nd Skin digital-clothing exhibition.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

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 what to expect at this event. But within minutes of walking through the door of this wonderful science museum, I was participating in one of the oddest group circles I've ever encountered. Known as ok2touch, a project by MIT Media Lab members Jay Silver and Jodi Finch, it was an outfit that was the central element in a circuit that can be made up of almost anything, as long as human skin is a part of it.

The idea, explained Silver, is that the outfit--which is designed with special metallic-based conductive thread--turns people's bodies into musical instruments, along with the bodies of anyone else around who is touched.

That's why Silver organized myself and a bunch of others into a big circle and then proceeded to explain how, as long as we all held hands, our collective movements would produce music on the outfit being worn by a model who was also in the circle.

And it didn't have to be hands: we could bump foreheads, and music would erupt from the outfit.

Adrian Vanallen poses with her dog in a dress that honors 18th-century anatomist Robert Hook

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

"The project is about designing more human-to-nature contact," said Silver, pointing out that it works with water, flowers, and skin-on-skin, and that, for example, the circuit can go through water without any kind of danger. That's why, when I first walked up, Silver was having people run their fingers through some water on the ground, and the model's outfit was breaking out in music.

The larger message behind the project? That it's OK to touch each other.

"We learn so much about when it's not OK to touch," Silver said. But "touch is just such an important part of our humanness."

Next, I wandered over to a different area at the Exploratorium where a photographer was getting those people taking part in the evening's fashion show--the central event of the exhibition--to pose for pictures.

Amisha Gadani shows off her self-inflating dress during the opening of the 2nd Skin exhibition at the Exploratorium on Friday night. The dress is meant to be reminiscent of the actions of a blowfish.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

As Adrian Vanallen stepped down from the photographer's lights, I grabbed her. That's because she was wearing an outfit adorned with some sort of complex outline of the human anatomy--and she was carrying a small dog whose internal anatomy was also pictured on an outfit it was wearing.

Vanallen explained that her outfit represented an 18th-century anatomy circulation system created by English scientist Robert Hook, whom, she said, theorized that there were mini-humans inside our cells. Her outfit and that of her dog, then, were odes "to the history and the future of anatomy."

Nearby, Amisha Gadani was showing off her self-inflating dress. At least a couple of people seemed to see it as a dress that would autonomously re-enact the famous Marilyn Monroe scene from The Seven Year Itch, but Gadani said it was about something else entirely.

In fact, she said, the dress was based on blowfish behavior.

"Whenever I'm intimidated," she said, speaking in the guise of a human playing a blowfish, "I blow up. And I deflate when I feel like I'm safe again."

She said that someone had told her that the dress--which she actually inflates with a little control button she holds in her hand that operates a couple of fans built into the fabric--might be more like a mating ritual than something that scares people away.

"I'm OK with that," she said, "but it's definitely inspired by a blowfish."

For those interested in people watching, this was an evening to remember. Everywhere you looked there were men, women, and children dressed to the nines in all manner of outlandish outfits. Some were just for fun, and others were for the fashion show.

Some were dressed in various forms of circus attire, while others were adorned in what looked to be many, many, many layers of orange pom-poms.

And then there were the three people walking around together in matching full-body outfits of dozens and dozens of protruding circular foam pieces.

In the fashion show toward the end of the evening, my favorite piece might have been Amanda Parkes and Adam Kumpf's Piezing, a dress that is able to generate its own power based on the model's natural gestures while walking. The way it works, according to the evening's program, is that it "converts mechanical strain into electrical voltage as a person walks."

Another interesting piece in the digital part of the fashion show was Leah Buechley and Hunter Ewan's Reconfigure, a dancing outfit that creates music with the wearer's body motions. As the model wearing the dress strutted her stuff on the catwalk, the outfit broke out in all forms of music, a very odd experience.

Jill Haefele walks around the Exploratorium with her raining umbrella. It is covered with nasturtium, and has a reservoir filled with water on her back, which pumps a spray of rain onto the plants.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

Back off the catwalk, however, I ran into Jill Haefele, who works in the Exploratorium's living systems department, and she talked to me about her Portable Nasturtium plant, which was doubling as a rain-producing umbrella.

The way this works: Haefele had a container of water strapped to her back, out of which came a tube that was pumping water up into the air. It would then come down as "rain" on her umbrella, which was made with Nasturtium, a lovely green plant.

A man working with electroluminescent wire, otherwise known as EL wire, at the Exploratorium in San Francisco on Friday night. The EL wire was part of a larger creation he was making.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

As she walked around, the system was producing the rain and she was forced to keep on moving lest the water puddle up around her feet.

All in all, it was an enjoyable evening. Everywhere you looked, someone was wearing an outrageous outfit, often adorned with some form of lighted technology. In many cases, it was electroluminescent wire, or EL wire, a form of thin, battery-powered, wire somewhat reminiscent of neon.

As a longtime Burning Man veteran, I am very familiar with EL wire, and that annual countercultural arts festival is one of the first places the colored wire became well known.

But these days, it is cheaper and much stronger and brighter than it used to be. So all over the place at the Exploratorium, I was almost blinded by the intensity of the EL wire necklaces, hats, and other garments people were wearing.

While the opening night exhibition was a lot of fun, visitors can enjoy some of the pieces from the evening throughout the full 2nd Skin run, which lasts until Sept. 7.