One of the latest trends in technology and fashion fields is high tech clothing. Although at first they may seem to be another extravagant idea which will fade away after a couple of years, it’s most certainly not the case.

High tech clothing is not only an innovation from today’s perspective — many believe that it will become a universal standard in the future. But what is it exactly, and who may be its developers’ target audience?

Let’s take a look at the market

High tech clothing products are the results of convergence of high technology with clothes manufacturing. To understand this idea better, it’s worth taking a short look at these two areas separately.

It’s obvious that on every developed market there are big players and small ones — competing, working together, exchanging ideas and developing various solutions and technologies. If we take a look at the global apparel market, it’s not so hard to determine the biggest companies that we all know. The same goes for tech companies like Nvidia, Samsung, Microsoft or Facebook (News - Alert) — some claim that in their area there is an even bigger amount of tight competition. The overall landscape is filled with rivalry combined with innovation.

At the same time, the high tech clothing market seems to be quite calm and peaceful. There are many small manufacturers, sometimes crowdfunded, who introduce their products on the internet without any big advertising campaigns. Why is that? If the invention of the smartphone gained so much of continuous publicity, why didn’t the media or customers react similarly to the development of such products as smart clothes?

The answer is quite simple — clothing as an everyday object is embedded in our culture much deeper than a smartphone, which is a very young and fresh invention (from the historical standpoint). Due to the long cultural existence of clothes in various forms as such, they adapt to new technological ideas much slower — but they still do. Let’s flip through some of them.

What are the most interesting examples of high tech clothing?

High tech clothing can provide a variety of functions — some of them overlap the ones which already exist in such devices as smartwatches, but at the same time there are certain sets of features which are unique just for them.

One of the most popular products on this highly innovative market is a smart jacket, manufactured by such producers as Jay23. Their PRO jacket series is an epitome of high tech clothing with many useful features. The most important of them are heated pockets powered by powerful rechargeable batteries, and a smartphone charging option. Imagine that you don’t have to carry a power bank anymore — in a way, you’re wearing one.

But what makes it so “smart”? Certainly it’s not just a battery and heating feature alone, mainly because such products as heated blankets were invented as early as in the 1930s. The “smart”, futuristic factor is an iOS and Android (News - Alert) app, which allows you to control the jacket’s temperature.

But these products are not only about using the latest inventions in the high tech clothing field — they focus on functional design, too. Let’s take the Jay23 PRO jacket again: one of its main advantages is the amount of specially designed pockets: one for AirTag, one for Apple (News - Alert) Pencil, a waist sack… Not only the “smart” part of the jacket is subject to careful design. The conventional one is also well-developed and manufactured.

Other amazing high tech clothing features

Some of them are still in the experimental phase, but nevertheless they outline the shape of things to come. First of all, some of them are solar-powered — they use small panels to gain energy from the sun, and charge the li-ion battery with it. Then, it can be distributed for pocket or back heating, smartphone charging and Bluetooth connectivity. Some smart shirts are packed with sensors which can detect and analyze your sports activity or even correct your posture.

It looks like the possibilities for high tech clothing are limitless — and they’re certainly going to be used by many manufacturers.