Wearable tech fashions blend style, smartphones

LED lights, cellphone apps and high-tech batteries are being combined with fashion staples cloth and thread in the burgeoning international trend of wearable tech.

Like most industries, the fashion world is being affected and inspired by today's technological advances. Designers are dreaming up tech-infused, fashion-forward clothing and accessories, ranging from convenient purses that charge one's smartphone to elaborate dresses featuring vivid displays think Katy Perry's colour-changing MET Gala gown or Nicole Scherzinger's haute couture dress that featured Twitter posts.

Toronto-based designer and engineer Robert Tu is one of the international fashion experts exploring the wearable tech/interactive fashion trend.

Tu creates pieces that combine graphic visuals and electronic media with textiles his MeU modular LED matrix, for instance, can be embedded into clothing or accessories and displays information.

In the attached video, Tu demonstrates his MeU technology embedded into a jacket designed for cyclists for CBC's Deana Sumanac.

Watch the attached video from The National for Sumanac's report on the rise of wearable tech.

• Wearable technology featured in Calgary fashion gala

• PHOTOS: Toronto Fashion Week: vote on runway fashion favourites

World MasterCard Fashion Week 2014 runs March 17-21 in Toronto.