A shirt which rolls up its own sleeves when you get too warm has been unveiled by a tech-savvy Italian fashion house. And what鈥檚 more, its inventors say it will never need ironing.
The fabric for the prototype shirt is woven from fibres of the shape-memory alloy nitinol, interspersed with nylon. The alloy can be deformed, and then returned to its original shape when heated to a certain temperature.
It is this shape memory property that is key to how the 鈥渕emory metal shirt鈥� works. 鈥淭he sleeve fabric is programmed to shorten as soon as the room temperature becomes a few degrees hotter,鈥� says Susan Clowes, a spokeswoman for Corpo Nove of Florence, the shirt鈥檚 developer.
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鈥淓ven if the fabric is screwed up into a ball, pleated and creased, a blast from a hairdryer pops it back to its former shape,鈥� Clowes says. This means the shirt can be 鈥榠roned鈥� as you are wearing it. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a travellers鈥� dream,鈥� she says.
And because the fabric鈥檚 weave has five nylon fibres to every nitinol fibre, clothing made from it is also washable and non-allergenic.
But fashion victims should not expect to be able to buy one of Corpo Nove鈥檚 intelligent shirts next time they are out shopping. The prototype shirt cost around 拢2500 to make, and is available in any colour you like 鈥� provided you have a tendency to wear metallic grey, that is. 鈥淏ut it looks distinctly bronze-coloured in some lights,鈥� says Clowes.
