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"Everything starts as somebody's daydream. And, when you're daydreaming, it is science fiction. It's when you start work out how you put it together, true science fiction becomes real science."
- Larry Niven
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| Bio-Fabric | ||
| Living cloth that constantly adapts itself to the personality and needs of its wearer. |
Mr. Sampson owns a beach boutique; disdaining inert-wear, he and his partner sell the latest bio-fabric fashions.
| The racks of gowns itched and quivered, their colors running into blurred pools. One drawback of bio-fabrics is their extreme sensitivity. Bred originally from the gene stocks of delicate wisterias and mimosas, the woven yard have brought with them something of the vine's remarkable response to atmosphere and touch. The sudden movement of someone nearby, let alone of the wearer, brings an immediate reply from the nerve-like tissues. A dress can change its color and texture in a few seconds, becoming more decollete at the approach of an eager admirer, more formal at a chance meeting with a bank manager.
This sensitivity to mood explains the real popularity of bio-fabrics. Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure, but from living tissues that adapt themselves to the contours and personality of the wearer. Other advantages are the continued growth of the materials, fed by the body odours and perspriration of the wearer, the sweet liqueurs distilled from her own pores, and the constant renewal of the fibers, repairing any faults or ladders and eliminating the need for washing. |
| Technovelgy from Say Goodby to the Wind,
by J.G. Ballard. Published by Ultimate Publications, Inc. in 1970 Additional resources -
|
In these fashions, temperamental couturers were not the main concern. Temperamental dresses could destroy themselves in a panic, or become hats.
Compare to the self-cleaning gym suit from Oryx and Crake (2003) by Margaret Atwood and fabricules from The Diamond Age (1995) by Neal Stephenson.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Say Goodby to the Wind
More Ideas
and Technology by J.G. Ballard
Tech news articles related to Say Goodby to the Wind
Tech news articles related to works by J.G. Ballard
Bio-Fabric-related
news articles:
- Transformer Clothing
- Sensor-Equipped Dress Tells You How She Feels
- Smart Second Skin Dress Interacts With Wearer
- Sound Reactive Nightgown
- Protocell Running Shoes Regenerate
- Second Skin Clothing By Biologic Changes With You
- Smart Clothing From Finland
- Self-Healing Textiles! Say Goodbye To Torn Jeans
- Eighth Sense Emotion-Responsive Cloak
- Fluorescent Bacteria Fashion
- Clothes That Do Photosynthesis
- E - Ink's Automatic Self Styling Color-Changing Dress
- 'Soft Assembly' Fashions That Fashion Themselves On The Wearer
| Don't Want To Wear A TIght Shiny Bodysuit? |
| 'Soft Assembly' Fashions That Fashion Themselves On The Wearer |
| Rigid Metallic Clothing From Science Fiction To You |
| iPhone Pocket All Sold Out! |
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'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!'
'Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure.'
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair or to perch on a flagpole in imitation of a giant bird, even in the windy city of Chicago.'
'The thirty-odd miles of The Factory’s circumference...'
'Wandering mines, you took them out on the edge of the desert, set them down and activated them.'
'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'
'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'
