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Pockets: What's in yours?
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Article RatingHave you ever wondered what gives with that little pocket inside most men's pants?
Although most cell phones fit ever so perfectly, the little right-hand pockets were originally created to hold one's pocket watch -- assuming one was of the class that carried a pocket watch, that is.
But with pocket watches joining the parasol and bowler hat in the fashion annals of yore, what is the modern-day function for that obscurely teeny compartment?
"Trapping my keys," typed one responder at Ask MetaFilter.com, an online forum devoted to answering life's tougher questions.
But there are other uses.
Levi's, the popular clothing designer best known for its denim jeans, has decided to skip a few generations with a new product line released this fall.
Using their watch pocket's "crisp white leather patch and joystick," wearers of the RedWire DLX jeans can play, pause and skip their way through their music library. An aptly colored wire connects the controller to a new generation of pockets designed specifically to dock with an iPod -- sold separately, and if you're asking what this is, you might as well reset your pocket watch and go back to sleep for a few decades.
What's the catch?
Of course there's a few catches:
The machine-washable jeans -- without the iPod, of course -- are available to Sentinel readers almost exclusively over the Internet, where the fully equipped models retail for $250.
Eventually, a Levi's saleswoman says, music hipsters will be able to get their hip-huggers at most department stores. But for the moment, there are no vendors within a 100-mile radius.
The jeans maker is but the latest, albeit one of the most well-known, retailers to bridge the gap between fashion and technology.
"Intelligent textiles, variously known as smart fabrics, electronic textiles, or e-textiles, have attracted considerable attention worldwide due to their potential to bring revolutionary impacts on human life," writes a professor at Wayne State University in Detroit on an international scientific symposium held in Japan last year.
While Dr. Yong Xu probably isn't referring directly to casual wear for suburbanites, he is talking about a relatively new field of scientific exploration that could, some day, have a huge impact on everyday life.
Just imagine downloading your heart's performance on your latest run directly to your cardiologist or typing an e-mail from your couch using only a pair of gloves.
Futuristic clothing
These scenarios may be closer than you think.
In Department of Defense-funded research that began in 1996, a team from the Georgia Institute of Technology has created the "Smart Shirt" to monitor the wearer's vital signs.
Using "plastic optical fibers" (POFs), the vest gathers data and creates a series of circuits can sound the alarm for structural breaches -- i.e.wounds from bullets, shrapnel or other sources. It would also allow for medics hundreds of miles away to mass-triage a unit to better direct a field medic, a public relations specialist says.
In its more commercial form, Maryland firm Sensatex Inc. is working on several models of "breathable" shirts that allow targeted demographics -- namely recreational exercisers, the elderly, parents of infants or first responders to emergencies -- to track biological data such as pulse and respiration rate.
Researchers at Virginia Tech, meanwhile, have experimented from everything to a glove that replaces the computer keyboard as a means to input text to a jumpsuit that conforms to the wearer and tracks the body's motion for use in recreating natural movements.
Multimedia duds
But back to the relatively technological level, clothing interlaced with MP3 players is not entirely new.
In March 2005, two German companies teamed up to bring to market the mp3blue, which they hailed as the world's first "multimedia/lifestyle jacket."
Incorporating a removable MP3 player and a permanent headphone set, Bluetooth-wireless microphone and the necessary wiring for both, the jacket from Rosner and INFINEON Technologies is reportedly even washable.
The initial production included only 600 units priced at about $760 each. Nonetheless, the companies claimed that, by 2007, total sales of "intelligent textile" products the world over would exceed $1.25 billion annually.
Similarly targeting music/hands-free cell lovers, several snowboarding or skiing companies joined up with Apple to release their Pod-compatible-jackets. The briefly marketed coats came with a padded iPod enclosure and a flexible control-panel on the sleeve, but were no longer advertised or listed as available at several Web sites.
There are also, of course, any number of carrying cases that bind MP3 players and other independent electronic devices to everything from a back pack to a runner's bare arm.
Ummm, maybe not
As for the consumer response, a very unscientific poll of Dickinson College students and youth at the Capital City Mall seemed to indicate these trends are still ahead of their time.
After popping his head phones from his ears, mall-walker Chris Emory of Camp Hill says he would consider buying such electronically integrated clothing if it's affordable.
"I usually bring it everywhere," he says of his MP3 player, adding that even when it's not on it helps block out conversations. He notes that a friend of his with a similar jacket was frequently frustrated trying to get in and out of the heavily wired outfit.
At Dickinson, meanwhile, freshman James Watson-Krips from the Philadelphia area said he rarely heads to class without his Creative Zen, which is presently playing the electronica artist Kenna.
Krips says he enjoys his music, but doesn't see the point in specifically marketed music devices such as the Oakley Thump, an $400-plus product that combines of ocular sun protection with an in-the-ear DJ.
"I'm afraid I'd break it," he adds.
Kimberly Weiss, a freshman at George Washington University who visited Dickinson recently, said she appreciates any sort of improvement for MP3 listeners.
That doesn't mean she needs it, though.
"I've definitely tripped before," she says of trying to circumnavigate the streets of the nation's capital while listening to music.
