TechnoThreads- Fashion of the Future

“Welcome to the world of tomorrow”, a bespectacled goofy scientist delcares in his best science fiction voice to Futurama's Philip J. Fry when he is reanimated after spending a thousand years cryogenically frozen. Visitors to Techno Threads, the latest exhibition at the Science Gallery, should be greeted with a similar refrain.  

Entering the exhibition is like stepping into the future of fashion except the innovations on display are not merely imaginings they are possible.

Science has always been the driving force behind fashion with creations such as dye and synthetic fabrics allowing designers to experiment with and shape what the world wears. Techno Threads gives a nod to science's major role in the fashion world, displaying cutting edge work from exciting designers such as Walter van Beirendonck, Yoshiki Hishinuma and Hussein Chalayan.

Nano and bio-technologies are combined with traditional craft and Haute Couture skills to create shirts that send hugs from a loved one, spray-on dresses and semi-living clothes made from tissue cultures such as Tissue and Culture's controversial ‘Victimless Leather' minature coat grown from stem cells or Donna Franklin and Garry Cass's ‘Wine Dress'. The wine dress is made from a fermented solution of wine, which reacts with sugar forming a surface skin. This densens and dries, moulding itself into a desired shape and forming a seamless, biosynthetic garment that doesn't involve a single stitch. Of course if you're not a wine fan, you can always try the Guinness garment – created specially for this exhibition.

Divided into three sections, Techno Threads offers an insight into the fashion world of tomorrow, while also raising some interesting ethical questions about the clothes we wear.

Runs at the Science Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin
26 April - 25 July 2008
sciencegallery.com