Hug Shirts:)

The Hug Shirt by CUTECIRCUIT aimed to help lead the revolution in combining media technologies into fashion, and did they deliver something interesting.

The shirt is a comfy lightweight fabric, with a more close fit. The fabric is installed with 15 “sandwiches” across main contact areas for hugs. Some of these sandwiches are larger than others, but are designed to fit the shape the areas in use. Fortunately these sandwiches wont go bad. These devices are filled with pressure and temperature censors to help emulate the traits of your sender’s hug. The sensors accurately transfer the signals determining the characteristics of said hug through a Bluetooth signal to one’s phone. They can then send the hug as a message to a recipient with cell tower access, the recipient receives the message that a hug is waiting, which then communicates via Bluetooth with the garment to simulate the hug. Now the hugee can become the hugger, and easily chooses to send one back.

An interesting aspect of this wear goes back to the first readings, particularly Fashion as Communication. The peculiarity here is that this shirt itself became the medium of communication. Its less about saying something or making a statement, and more about the ability to share personal emotions between two people divided by geography. Arguably, one could say wearing a hug shirt says something about you, but so does wearing nothing. When it comes down to the design and aesthetic, the purpose of personal communication of emotion cannot be stripped from the image or message portrayed by someone wearing it.

While most of these “sandwich” sensors are washable similar to the LilyPad from class, the main “brain” board has to be removed for the process. The designers made note of the additional care, and made sure to design easy accessibility to the brain, as the brain itself is ironically an intuitive and easy hookup.

I believe the Hug Shirt is an ingenious way to mesh fashion with prevailing technologies like phones and how they’ve allowed us to bridge gaps in distance and keep connected. While we aren’t always with others, we have some form of communication with them. The Hug Shirt takes it a step further, and bridges another gap. By using fashion and available technologies, CUTECIRCUIT attempts to make our virtual interactions more meaningful by bringing back a more natural way of communication.

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