(Photos on top by Johan Sundell)

the Attention seeking jacket
Final project in Fashion & technology, 2008

My idea was to create a set of clothing where every garment has it's own
personality. The first garment to come alive is this Attention seeking
jacket.

How does the attention seeking jacket work? If the wearer of the
jacket speaks to someone the jacket will make a louder sound to drown
the wearer, same thing happens when someone else speaks to the wearer.
In other words this jacket wants all the attention by itself and it will
get jealous and make noice when the wearer draws his or hers attention
to someone else than the jacket itself.

What does it sounds like? I wanted the jacket to have its own language.
Therefore I have recorded 40 different sounds by using sewing materials
like for example zippers, buttons and fabrics. One of the 40 tracks is
played randomly when the microphone gets trigged by a voice/sound.
Inside the garment is also an USB-memory stick, a Vmusic player,
two speakers, amplifier, 9V battery clip and a programmed Arduino Board.

Why? It all began with me asking people what they would like/dislike if
they were garments. I got a lot of answers but one thing was coming back
again and again. Almost everybody wanted - if they were garments - a lot
of attention from the wearer. Nobody wanted to be forgotten and nobody
wanted to be hanging to long without being used.

Technical specification and everything you need to know here (pdf).