Interview with Wolfgang Langeder – Part 1
About a Vision to Create a New Kind of Innovation
Wolfgang Langeder from the Austrian company Utope is a professional designer, who created the Manta Color Morph Jacket by polychromelab. I met the visionary and textilie-virtuoso for an interview.
Maximilian Frey: Wolfgang, for everybody who doesn’t know you yet, can you explain what Utope is about?
Wolfgang Langeder: We at Utope want to create a new kind of innovation, something that hasn’t been developed yet. For this we integrate innovative technologies in textiles, that up to now only were components for digital devices, so new kinds of functions and applications for apparel become reality.
Maximilian Frey: How is this even possible, technologies in textiles? You and your team are trying to connect apparel to smartphones. Hopefully one doesn’t has to charge his jacket every evening, does he?
Wolfgang Langeder: No, the jackets doesn’t have to be charged on a daily basis. Our concept is quite different. We use sensors integrated in the jacket measuring specific data (of both body and environment) which are transmitted to the smartphone, processed and made available for use by an app. Because both wearer and apparel are in permanent movement, we work with stretchable electronics which are a basic requirement for integrating technology in apparel. This concept is washable and appropriately safe.
“It’s about essential applications, which occur in nature for adapting to the environment optimally.”
Maximilian Frey: If you look at the Sporty Supaheroe Jacket, you’ll notice that Wolfgang Langeder wants to tell a story with his designs. What’s the story behind the Manta Color Morph Jacket?
Wolfgang Langeder: The story behind the Manta Color Morph Jacket is about the connection of technology and nature. This is the very thing I wish to make transparent to the wearer. If you look at the jacket’s fabric, it’s a hightech textile capable of warming and cooling. These are essential applications, which occur in nature for adapting to the environment optimally.
Additionally, the fabric also has two different sides, which brought me on the trace of an animal which characteristics, because of its elegant and dynamic appaerance, I wanted to “translate” into design. It’s the manta ray. This way a synthesis was made to combine my design vocabulary with the fabric’s hightech functionality. Men become part of the interaction between technology and nature, men become the link between these two parts, you can feel and experience wearing the jacket.
Next week we’ll continue with part two of the interview. Meanwhile you can have a look on the Manta Color Morph by Utope and polychromelab here in our webshop. In this post we talked about the Manta Color Morph reversible jacket for women and men.
