Combining (albeit simple, for now) function with fashion is Angel Chang

New York-based fashion designer Angel Chang explores bleeding edge trends in fashion. Inspired by smart fabrics and designing for the future, she collaborates with engineers and interaction designers to develop new ways of dressing for the cosmopolitan woman.

Her Fall 2007 collection included a Velveteen Edwardian Jacket with iPod controls and a long jacket that has heat sensitive lining – changing from plain to pattern under contact with body heat. But even more interestingly, her Spring 2007 collection included this:

A see-through raincoat, with extra froufrou details and an AA-battery powered LED lightsource in a bib formation on the front, activated by a ‘magnetic on/off snap‘. (Doesn’t the model look just thrilled?)

In her ‘Artist’s Statement’, she writes:

There are enough clothes in the world; we do not need another mainstream fashion designer.

What we need are experiments and those who are willing to experiment. We designers are too safe today relying on the trends of the past rather than innovating for the future.

I think of all the ways my generation of women are different from previous generations: we’ re working more, traveling more, dependent on our cell phones, hooked on the Internet, and obsessively checking our e-mail. In short, we are more mobile and heavily depend on technology for all the things we do in our daily lives. But while our roles and lifestyles have changed drastically over the last 40 years, the structure of our clothing, oddly, has not.

This capsule collection is a series of concepts I developed in the last year: color-changing inks, 3-D images, iPod clothing, and light-up gear. Some serve a specific function while others are for personal entertainment. It is not a solution, but rather a first step, to tackling the aforementioned problem.

My aim is to show that clothes can actually do something — beyond just looking good; they ought to facilitate and improve the way we live. Whether they’re waterproof cottons or iPods stitched into our clothes, each piece displayed is a solution to a problem I’ve encountered when wearing clothes in the city.

Each piece is a collaboration with someone in the technology world. It goes beyond the forced superficial fashion & tech marketing pairings we’ve seen in recent years, and is based on a more organic creative process. The technology itself is oftentimes concealed in the design, so the clothes can maintain their design integrity. I hope to show the fashion world that innovation goes beyond just rearranging ruffles, and to convince tech companies that they should invest further in these types of collaborations.

I like the way she thinks. The (monotonously narrated) video below details some of her work, including the heat-sensitive fabrics.

Sadly, her latest collection, besides some prints being based on the Manhattan street map, wasn’t nearly as interesting.