Pull back the curtain on making fun and innovative costumes and accessories incorporating technologies like low-cost microprocessors, sensors and programmable LEDs.

Fashion tech can require skills in design, pattern-making, sewing, electronics, and maybe 3D printing. Besides the tech skills, making a good costume or accessory also requires knowledge of the intangibles of what makes a good costume. This book is a collaboration between two technologists and a veteran teacher, costumer, and choreographer. Regardless of whether you are coming at this from the theater costuming, sewing, or electronics side, the authors will help you get started with the other skills you need.

More than just a book of projects (although it has those too),Practical Fashion Tech teaches why things are done a certain way to impart the authors collective wealth of experience. Whether you need a book for a wearable tech class or you just want to get started making fantastic costumes and wearables on your own, Practical Fashion Tech will get you there.

What you will learn:The fundamentals of both the sewing and the technology aspects of wearable tech for fashionHow to make a memorable costume that reacts to its wearer or environmentIdeas for using this book as a textbookWho this is for:Electronics enthusiasts, hipsters, costume designers, teachers, and students who want to learn how to make fashion or cosplay wearables. Cosplay fans wanting to incorporate sensors and more into their costumes.

As an engineer and management consultant, Joan Horvath has coordinated first-of-a-kind interdisciplinary technical and business projects, helping people with no common vocabulary (startups, universities, small towns, etc). work together. Her experience as a systems engineer has spanned software development, spacecraft flight operations, risk management, and spacecraft/ground system test and contingency planning. As an educator, Joans passion is bringing science and technology to the non-specialist in a comprehensible and entertaining way that will stay with the learner for a lifetime.

Rich Cameron is a cofounder of Pasadena-based Nonscriptum LLC. Nonscriptum consults for educational and scientific users in the areas of 3D printing and maker technologies. Rich (known online as Whosawhatsis) is an experienced open source developer who has been a key member of the RepRap 3D-printer development community for many years. His designs include the original spring/lever extruder mechanism used on many 3D printers, the RepRap Wallace, and the Deezmaker Bukito portable 3D printer. By building and modifying several of the early open source 3D printers to wrestle unprecedented performance out of them, he has become an expert at maximizing the print quality of filament-based printers. When he's not busy making every aspect of his own 3D printers better, from slicing software to firmware and hardware, he likes to share that knowledge and experience online so that he can help make everyone elses printers better too.Lyn Hoge has been a dance teacher, costumer, and choreographer for over 40 years. In that time, she has designed and created costumes for musicals, plays and various types of dance performances. These include everything from simple period costume plays like Our Town to elaborate and quirky versions ofThe Rocky Horror Picture ShowandBat Boy the Musical. Lyn has also created unique and functional designs for everything from the T-Rex and Wooly Mammoth inThe Skin of Our Teethto still walkers at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In the past couple of years, she has been delving into the world of wearable tech and recently started writing about her experiences as a teacher and student. Lyn has a BA in dance and has studied at UCLA, UC Irvine, and at many private studios.

Part 1. The Big Picture

Chapter 1. Fashion Tech

Chapter 2. Practical Costume Design

Part 2. The Basics

Chapter 3. How to Sew

Chapter 4. Making and Using Sewing Patterns

Chapter 5. Wearable Tech Electronics

Chapter 6. Programming Wearables

Chapter 7. Your First Project

Part 3. Beyond the Basics

Chapter 8. Sensors and Other Hardware

Chapter 9. 3D Printing

Chapter 10. The Importance of Planning

Chapter 11. Two Bigger Projects

Part 4. Where To Go From Here

Chapter 12. Other Technologies

Chapter 13. A Look Ahead

Appendix A. Teaching Fashion Tech

Appendix B. Links in this Book