BRIEFING: Smart and interactive apparel textiles

Despite considerable publicity and many years of research and development, to date, very few "wearable electronic" smart textile products have been successfully commercialised in any volume on a global basis. This is due to the fact that the developers of smart textiles technology have mostly been either US academic institutions, focusing on the unique requirements of the US military, or electronics/chip companies, who have not understood the very different approaches to product development, planning horizons, user needs, etc of the textiles industry. As a result, new product development is generally not market driven.