Wearable Solar Clothing: fashion with embedded solar panels to charge your cell phone

11 December 2013. Wearable Futures: flaps in this range of clothing by Dutch fashion designer Pauline van Dongen open up to reveal solar panels, enabling the wearer to become a walking mobile phone charger (+ movie).  Pauline van Dongen collaborated with Christiaan Holland from the HAN University of Applied Sciences and solar energy expert Gert Jan Jongerden on the Wearable Solar project, which aims to integrate photovoltaic technology into comfortable and fashionable clothing. "Wearable Solar is about integrating solar cells into fashion, so by augmenting a garment with solar cells the body can be an extra source of energy," Van Dongen told Dezeen at the Wearable Futures conference in London. "It's really about the true integration of technology and fashion, which can transcend the realm of gadgets."  The dress features 72 flexible cells attached to panels on the front of the garment that can be folded outwards to capture sunlight. Forty-eight rigid crystal solar panels are incorporated into leather flaps on the jacket's shoulders and waist so they can be revealed when the sun shines and hidden when not in use. A standard charging plug connects the solar panels directly to a mobile device, and Van Dongen claimed that a garment exposed to direct sunlight for one hour could capture enough energy to charge a typical smartphone to 50 percent capacity.

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