In this day and age, technology has become an important aspect of our lives. Technology has even found its way into modern day fashion. One such advancement in fashion is Nike’s new self-lacing shoes. With the Nike HyperAdapt 1.0, you just slip your feet into the shoe and it tightens snugly around your foot giving you the perfect fit. There are also small knobs on the side to adjust the fit manually. But self–lacing shoes are not the only technological advances in fashion. 3-D printing, special fabrics, and wearable technology have also begun to emerge in the fashion industry.

The newest developments in 3-D printed fashion are printed fabrics and shoes. In early May of 2015, a company by the name of Electroloom started their business in making 3-D printed fabrics. The Electroloom made shirts, skirts and even dresses using a liquid solution guided by an electric field to ingeniously create one seamless garment. Although, the company shut down in early August, fashion designers are still using 3-D printing to create whimsical and innovative pieces. For example, 3-D printed shoes in futuristic and geometric designs, were showcased at the Paris Fashion Week.

Designers are also creating textiles that can react to environmental changes. One such example is a dress that can change color based on the pH level of rain. There is even a dress that moves and lights up when you look at it. Mrs. Trisko, the fashion teacher at Wilcox, stated that, “There are also garments that prevent sweating and fabrics that can protect you from the sun,” There is a scarf that can interfere with flash photography, making it impossible to recognize the person’s face. It was a perfect anti-paparazzi scarf for celebrities, and became a hot topic in the media.

Nowadays, technology allows us to make clothing that is perfectly fit for us. “In the future, there will most likely be an increase of customized

clothing,” Mrs. Trisko notes. With the emergence of advanced 3-D scanners that can take accurate measurements of people’s bodies and make clothing that is perfectly fit for them, this is definitely a strong possibility.

However, even though technology is becoming a bigger part of the fashion industry, fashion still needs people, not just machines. The Manus x Machina exhibition at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art showcased the modern collaboration of technology and the hand. Featuring dresses made of folded fiber glass and laser cut silicon, the exhibition was a true collaboration of the past and present.

Technology is an important part of the modern world, and it is slowly taking over all facets of our lives, fashion included. In time, it is very likely that more new innovations will appear and other cutting edge high-tech machinery will emerge. Even though we may not need to always sew our clothes by hand anymore, fashion is always in need of a human touch.