Solar-powered dresses are so two years ago. These days, dames in the know are all about that piezoelectric material, evidenced by the incredibly flashy Piezing. Dreamed up and designed by Amanda Parkes, this piece of garb is all set to steal the show at the 2ndSkin expo in San Francisco, and according to CNET, it features electricity-generating fabrics around the joints of the elbows and hips. When the wearer walks, bends or gets downright nasty on the dance floor, the mechanical stress conjures up energy which is stored as voltage in a built-in battery where it can presumably be used later for charging your favorite handheld gizmo. Sure gets our electrons flowing.

[Via textually, image courtesy of James Patten]
Read - 2ndSkin expo
Read - CNET article on Piezing

If there's one thing we know about the clothing of the future, it's that it'll be incredibly silly -- like this dress that self-inflates to form a chair when you need a quick break. Designer JooYoun Paek crafted this little slice of tomorrow from seven heavy-duty trash bags, two foot pumps, and a pair of slippers for the Unravel fashion show in San Diego this week -- and to "transform the humdrum experiences produced by routine walking commutes into an amusing interactive performance." Check the read link for a few vids of the dress in action.

[Via PopGadget]

When it comes to shedding pounds, we've seen everything from doing it the Nike+iPod way, the Dance Dance Revolution way, and even the Wii way, but the big downer on all of those methods is they actually require hustle to yield results. Sousan Allami, owner of Sousan's Body & Skin Care Center in Houston, Texas, has what appears to be a miracle-working machine that can literally melt off a few pounds in just 60 non-grueling minutes. The Slim Machine subjects an individual to "powerful massaging suction over problem areas," followed by you getting all wrapped up in strange oils and gauze and laying in the cell for an hour. The machine utilizes "hydro fusion" to reportedly burn away around 2,000 calories per hour without putting the person in any sort of discomfort, and a tester was actually able to fit a bit better into her garb after taking a one hour ride in the weight dropping gizmo. Still, a local nutritionist noted that all the machine is doing is ridding your body of water weight, which will most likely return within 24 hours, but if you're desperate to fit into that tux or dress and only have an hour to spare, $150 can now buy your way in.

[Via Spluch]

It may not have quite the instant geek-appeal of the pong dress, or the pain-inflicting potential of the self-defense dress, but the Day-for-Night solar-powered dress designed by Despina Papadopoulos should turn a few heads nonetheless. Made up of over 444 white circuit boards (depending on how long the dress is), the garment charges itself while in daylight, with RGB LEDs on each tile set to change color when the wearer's in low lit conditions. What's more, the dress also packs a 2.4GHz RF link, which can be used to receive commands from a computer to program how the tiles behave. Future plans for the dress include adding additional components like a GPS, accelerometer, and OLED displays, as well as publishing the complete source code and schematics so you put on your own geek couture hat. The dress was first unveiled at the recent SIGGRAPH conference but if you missed it there you can currently catch it on display at Chicago's A + D Gallery until October 21st.

[Via We Make Money Not Art]