Illuminated vs. Shape-Changing

What are the core differences between illuminated vs. shape-changing garments? Perhaps it is best to begin with a few examples: Illuminated displays integrated into wearables have had the most success in mainstream fashion from Cute Circuits’ “Twirkle” series of T-Shirts and dresses, to the “Galaxy Dress” with 24000 full color LEDs – the largest wearable display in the world! – to Anouk Wipprecht’s recent fiber-optic Superbowl Dress for Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas. On the other hand, origami and three-dimensional shape-changing interfaces have also had in incursion into the popular imagination of fashion, specifically the beautifully performed “Animorfos“ and “Geomorfos“ origami clothes series from Mauricio Velásquez Posada’s students at the Facultad de Diseño de Vestuario of the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana as well as Milanese Elena Salmistraro’s designs and Ying Gao’s interactive kinetic fashion.

In comparing the two forms as interfaces, these seem diametrically opposed. Where the illuminated wearables function principally as “displays” or “surfaces”, the origami garments are experienced in three-dimension and make use of kinetics for deployment and presentation. Where illuminated technologies are based on an I/O principal (after all, the LED is the indicator of functionality i.e. “on”) the shape-changing wearables are progressive and more evolutionary in display. I would argue that the two practices diverge in a 2D vs. 3D and a technology-bound vs. body-bound dynamic – or a display vs. performative interface.