The Future of Fashion

(Image credit: Textiles Nanotechnology Laboratory/Cornell University)Fashion designers and engineers are collaborating to develop innovative "smart textiles," or garments that merge fashion and technology.These dresses were created in the Textiles Nanotechnology Laboratory at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. The brown and blue dress on the left was produced without any pigments or dyes. The colors were created by coating cotton fibers with nanoparticles and manipulating the way matter and light interacts between the particles.

Wearable Charging Station

(Image credit: Textiles Nanotechnology Laboratory/Cornell University)Abbey Liebman, a design student at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., created a dress made with conductive cotton that can charge an iPhone via solar panels.

Up Close and Personal with Nylon

(Image credit: Textiles Nanotechnology Laboratory/Cornell University)Nylon nanofibers coated with gold nanoparticles (left) and crystal formations (right). Researchers at the Textile Nanotechnology Lab at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. are using nanoscience to create garments that can filter hazardous gases and industrial toxic chemicals.

Fashion with a Cause

(Image credit: Textiles Nanotechnology Laboratory/Cornell University)A wearable anti-malaria mosquito net capable of storing and releasing insecticides. The prototype was created at the Textile Nanotechnology Laboratory at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

Fiber Science and Nanotechnology

(Image credit: Textiles Nanotechnology Laboratory/Cornell University)These two dresses, designed by Olivia Ong, were colored with nanoparticles and are capable of killing 99.9999% of bacteria. The dresses were created at the Textile Nanotechnology Lab at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

Transforming Cotton

(Image credit: Textiles Nanotechnology Laboratory/Cornell University)An image of cotton fibers coated with gold (left) and palladium (right) nanoparticles. Researchers are merging nanoscience and fashion design to color garments without using any dyes, and to add antibacterial properties to clothing.