Simple but powerful, these conductive tattoos communicate data and actions to paired electronic devices, translating touch actions into digital activations. As biohacking and other transhumanist interventions go, this technology represents a relatively light-touch approach with potential appeal to a broader audience beyond your typical body hacker.

A collaboration between the MIT Media Lab and Microsoft Research, DuoSkin combines high-tech geekery with everyday fashion, putting circuits right on your skin for easy access. There are four essential configurations at work: a basic button for single-click actions, a slider to scroll, another slighter for continuous scrolls and a complex lattice that acts as a track pad.

They look like gold and silver flash tattoos but perform a variety of technological feats, thanks to a microcontroller and wireless communication unit. Connected to smartphones, computers or other gadgets, DuoSkin can be used like a touchpad controller, or can change color based on temperature, or can pull and transmit biological data (and combinations thereof).

Imagine: answering the phone, skipping a track in your podcast queue, turning on a TV or turning down the music with a quick swipe to your forearm. The fact that this system is easily removable is one of the key selling points, a harbinger of future mass-market tech that can be applied, taken back off and discarded, just like any other temporary tattoo.

From the design team: “DuoSkin is a fabrication process that enables anyone to create customized functional devices that can be attached directly on their skin. Using gold metal leaf, a material that is cheap, skin-friendly, and robust for everyday wear, we demonstrate three types of on-skin interfaces: sensing touch input, displaying output, and wireless communication.”

“DuoSkin draws from the aesthetics found in metallic jewelry-like temporary tattoos to create on-skin devices which resemble jewelry. DuoSkin devices enable users to control their mobile devices, display information, and store information on their skin while serving as a statement of personal style. We believe that in the future, on-skin electronics will no longer be black-boxed and mystified; instead, they will converge towards the user friendliness, extensibility, and aesthetics of body decorations, forming a DuoSkin integrated to the extent that it has seemingly disappeared.”

There’s no peace quite like death, a fact that seems to have inspired this coffin-shaped, sensory-dampening hood encouraging you to “say goodbye to everything” no matter how chaotic your environment may be. The ‘Wearable RIP’ fits around your head, with padding for your shoulders and a kangaroo pocket for your hands, so you can get some (hopefully not eternal, just yet) shuteye, even in airports or on the bus.

What kind of burial do you want? That’s a serious question, because the hood will give you three options that change the type of music that auto-plays when you lean back enough to activate the sensor behind your head. Select the glory of a burial by fire, go deep into the silent earth, or float with the echo of the ocean in your ears.

Designers Ting Wu and Yu Ting Chang want you to “cut down the connection between you and reality,” burying yourself in a world of your own choosing. There’s some heavy philosophy in their description of the project: “‘Lived-body’ is the alive body that you can perceive; ‘body as image’ is just the object, the shape of the body. If you can perceive the object, does that mean the object is alive to you? In contrast, if you can’t perceive someone, is he/she still alive?”

The Wearable RIP hood: for when you just want to be a little bit dead.

Tech Tats use conductive inks to create a circuit board right on your skin, providing a passive and unobtrusive alternative to standard wearables. Smartwatches and fitness trackers tend to stand out (worn on wrists or around necks) and need to be taken off and put back on daily, whereas these tats (while temporary) can be applied indefinitely.

The wearable can be used to monitor body temperature, blood pressure, stress levels and heart rate, then transmit data wirelessly to a mobile app or computer.

Lying effectively flat against the surface of your skin, these complete circuits are easy to conceal or reveal depending on whether or not you want to show off your ink.

The DIY-friendly design uses LED lights, a microcontroller and conductive ink – for now, the result is intentionally temporary, but permanently-inked versions could work as well.

The applications are numerous, starting with medical but expanding to financial as well as other identification-oriented use cases. A wearable wallet could be tied to your banking information, for example, or you could apply a Tech Tat to your child during an outing to a busy place, providing an easy way to track them in case you get separated. Chaotic Moon is currently developing both the wearable circuitry tech as well as related applications.

Textiles take the place of building materials in the dramatic swooping shapes, angular folds and oversized proportions of architecturally influenced fashion, whether on a highly wearable backpack or impractical runway couture. Fashion designers play with grids, tessellation, towering shapes, baroque details and three-dimensional forms, often making use of technology like 3D printing for unexpected results.

Baroque Architecture Backpacks by Konstantin Kofta

Designer Konstantin Kofta presents ‘arcs,’ a series of backpacks taking their shapes from baroque architectural elements like column caps and flourishes. Made of leather, the stone-gray accessories have a realistic appearance. “Natural forms and curves are applicable to human architecture,” says Kofta. “Baroque architecture inspiration – where regular designs give way to curves, dramatic shapes and decoration – was transferred to sculptural leather Kofta pieces to evoke sensual delight.”

Airplane Dress by Hussein Chalayan

Gleaming white with semi-detached panels lifting up beneath a layer of tulle, Hussein Chalayan’s Airplane Dress is made of the same material used in aircraft construction and changes shape via remote control.

Spectacular Bridge-Like Creations by Winde Rienstra

Amsterdam-based fashion designer Winde Rienstra explores structure and space with her 11:11 collection, blurring the lines between clothing and objects. Stiff as corsetry and creating a sort of cage around the body, the ribbed, angled pieces call to mind suspension bridges and the flying buttresses of Gothic cathedrals.

Iris Van Herpen’s 3D Printed Fashion Revolution

An innovator in the usage of 3D printing in fashion, Iris van Herpen shakes up the status quo with exciting three-dimensional pieces of wearable sculpture characterized by rich texture and almost alien patterns that would be right at home in a sci-fi movie. Van Herpen’s creations bridge the gap between wearable technology and fashion, focusing more on the aesthetics of strange new textiles than on gadgets.

Architectural Camouflage by Snarkitecture

Architecture and design duo Snarkitecture debuts ‘Architectural Camouflage,’ a collection of apparel and accessories featuring prints of white hex tile, subway tile and marble. Stand against the right urban surface, and you’ll blend right in. The pieces are available for purchase at Print All Over Me.

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Wearable Architecture 29 Structural Silhouettes In Fashion

Wear your love for your city on your sleeve – and your t-shirt, tote bag, necklace, cuff bracelet and bandanna. Aerial maps, transit maps, city skylines, notable architecture and even the abstracted colors of a certain neighborhood are printed onto all manner of urban wearables in this collection of city-themed clothes and accessories.

New York City Subway Map Tights

Display your love for your hometown as a relocated New Yorker with these Manhattan subway map tights, or be prepared for fellow transit riders to peer at your legs trying to figure out which stop to get off at if you decide to don them in the city.

Handscape City Rings

Turn your fingers into a ‘handscape’ with these rings by Studio ZLDA, designed to be worn together to create a personal collection of buildings, trees and tiny figures.

Cityscape Clothes Valet

Start your day off getting dressed next to this cityscape clothes valet by Andrea Brugnera for Formabilio, a simple geometric structure held together with small leather straps.

City Grid Dog Tags

This dog tag IDs where you come from in a more abstract and visual way, with a cut-out of an urban grid pattern. The collection from A Minimal Studio includes over 120 major cities from 32 countries around the world, and can be used as a functional map.

Neighborhood Scarves

The visuals of a particular spot are captured on video, stretched out and processed to create an abstracted motion of the place in visual form. The Brooklyn Block then prints this image on scarves so you can wear the colors and patterns of your favorite neighborhood.

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Wearable Cities 15 Urban Patterned Outfits Accessories