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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 7, 2001)
Plug *ny Play: These clothes are hot-wired for fun. Wear Your Computer By Wendy Marinaccio Life of the Party Get a great party outfit at ClubThings. You’ll light up the darkness in a shirt with animated lights—choose from an attention grabbing UFO, heart, star, alien, butterfly or other designs. These “e-shirts” come in black, sizes small to XXL and even in baby Ts, for $32.95. And don’t forget that all those flashing lights need four AAA batter ies. (clubthings.com) Made for Walking These boots from the Electric Shoe Company take all that hard . work from walking and turn it into something use ’ ful—about 100 megawatts of power. When your heel hits the ground it produces a current, which is saved in the shoe. You can use the stored electricity to power cell phones or other portable gadgets. You can’t buy these boots at Macy’s, but they're on their way to being commercially available—they were tested over the summer with a 120-kilome ter hike through the desert in Namibia. (theelectricshoeco.com) Don't Rent a Movie Get a jacket with a wearable computer on it—that everyone can see except you. A leather jacket created by MIT grad Stephan Fitch plays streaming video and comes com plete with a Windows computer, LCD screen and wireless Net connection. A 233 MHz Pentium III processor and 1 GB hard drive are also included. The jacket was commis sioned by MSN to play ads for its service, and was also used in New York City to show Gladiator trailers when the movie debuted. Gadgets Galore If you're a sucker for gadgets you’re going to want to buy the modern interpreta tion of the classic Levi's jacket. This one has a built-in cell phone, portable MP3 player and universal remote control to work them all. The MP3 play er will turn off when a call comes in, and you just have to speak into your collar when you talk on the voice activated cell phone. Better yet— the buttons are vol ume controls. Made by Levi Strauss and Italian designer Massimo Osti and equipped with Philips Electronics gadgets, the digital jacket is only avail able in Europe right now—but that’ll give you time to save up the $900 to buy one. Connected Jeans A Swiss company called Skim.com sells clothes that are individually tagged with an ID number. You can use the number to get an email address and interact on the Skim web site with others who may have similar fashion taste and interests. The price for finding like-minded fashion mavens on the web? Jeans run about $100, and their line of shirts, bags, shoes and accessories will set you back any where from $49 to $150. k Not the Ga Clothing company ZoZa was founded by the creators of Banana Republic (now mil lionaires after selling it to the Gap). Its line of “urban performance clothing” is sold online and in “walk-in web sites,” which include one set of ZoZa’s offerings that you can try on, but then order from an in-store computer. ZoZa clothes are made out of breathable fabrics and Velcro, with compartments for cell phones and PDAs sewn in. Basically it’s designer clothing, except functional—and you can put it in the washing machine. (ZoZa.com) • CyberTailors Custom-made clothes at IC3D.com Everyone knows that trauma of shopping for jeans. After hours under fluorescent lighting, you look down at a mountain of rejects and realize you’re never going to be able to find the perfect pair of jeans, the ones that fit you just right, with the pockets you like and the exact JW shade of denim you’ want. Enter IC3D.com IC3D.corn's unique web site lets you build your own pair of jeans—or skirt, handbag, T-shirt and other articles ot clothing. Through a complex, but surprisingly easy-to-follow system of menu choices that let you pick everything down to the color of thread and the type of rivets you want, you can design that perfect pair of jeans—all for about $65. Peter Del Rio and a former partner with a background in fashion founded the web site in New York City in 1996. The pair wanted to create a niche market for consumers, said Del Rio. “We believe the real B to C is business es dealing one-on-one with the consumer, allowing them to create heir own unique product.” Behind the Scenes with IC3D.com STS: What do you think the future of clothes shopping is going to be? Del Rio: Shopping is going to come closer to entertainment. You will be able to con figure clothes online similar to the way Dell does with computers. STS: What's your most popular service? Del Rio: Jeans is our most popular service. We have over 300 different fabrics to choose from. The CopyCat (that allows consumers to send in an old pair of jeans and have them copied) service is slightly under 50 percent of first orders. STS: Where are your clothes made? Del Rio: All of our clothes are made by union workers in New York. •
