Textile Futures: Fashion, Design and Technology

Bradley Quinn writes about broad trends in e-textiles in a vague and incomprehensible way, and about the particular projects in a confusing, and often inaccurate, specificity.At first I thought Quinn’s terrible writing was based in him being more familiar with fashion and fiber arts than electronics, but he revealed his ignorance extends to textiles when he breathily wrote about a new, cutting edge technology of weaving with “spiralling movements” by saying “This process was a significant breakthrough in textile engineering as it enabled a fully finished fashion garment to be completed on a weaving machine” (pg 15), a sentence which caused me to shout “DOUBLE WEAVE IS AT LEAST 3,000 YEARS OLD”. My husband has now asked me to read the book in another room if I’m going to keep yelling so much.But let’s talk about how he knows even less about electronics! My favorite sentence: “Because the external fields of this transmission process are magnetic rather than radioactive, the health risks are believed to be less than the power transmission in systems that emit electrical fields.” (pg 16). This techno-babble gibberish is apparently trying to say that inductively charged devices are safer than battery charged ones. If I hadn’t wasted the last of my textbook money on this book, I’d buy him a copy of ‘Electricity & Magnetism Grades 5-8’, instead, perhaps he could spend a couple minutes reading “Magnetic and Electric Fields : Explain it like I’m 5” before he attempts to write about electronics again. And what exactly was he calling radioactive? The batteries? He mentions how vague “concerns about the health risks associated with wearing batteries and other power sources in close proximity to the human body question the viability of these fabrics.” Causing me to shout aloud (again) “YOU HAVE A CELL PHONE WITH A BATTERY IN YOUR POCKET ALL DAY! I’M PRETTY SURE CELL PHONES ARE VIABLE”. He concludes this peach of a paragraph with an inaccurate sentence about software routing power, followed by a total non-sequitur about sensors and actuators.If I wanted an overview of advances in textile technology with a focus on integrating electronics, a drunken google search would have been more informative. I not only regret the time I wasted reading this, I regret that I wrote angry comments in the margins of each page so that I can’t sell it back.

I am using this book as research for my BA Hons. dissertation. In my opinion the book has lots of information and is up to date but is a bit hard to read. There isn't a lot of pictures and is worded very academically. I would only suggest it for people who are confident with textile terminology and those who are confident readers. Otherwise there is a similar book called tomorrows wardrobe that is easier to read although this may not have as much relevant information.

If you are interested in technological textile developments and their uses, this book is for you. I teach textile design and this book is an excellent resource. It is clearly divided and well written in an understandable and informative way.

hab ich mit sher viel freude gelesen, es hat mir echt spass gemacht , kann ich nur weiterempfehlen, danke nochmal

Good

Excellent content, it is just a shame that everything is in black and white, it looks like a chinese copy. But apart from that the book itself is very very good. I ust wished the pics of the selected products were CMYK for more details