Stronger, faster, lighter, safer, smarter-these are the textiles of tomorrow. From the carbon-fibre composite bicycle frame to the cardiac constraint sock and the Mars Pathfinder landing airbags, material innovations surround us. Our landscape, our buildings, our vehicles, our clothes and our bodies all benefit from these highly engineered performance textiles. Accompanying a major exhibition organised by the Smithsonian Institutions Cooper Hewitt, National Design Museum, Extreme Textiles features examples of fully realised products reflecting the amazing variety of uses for technical textiles-in architecture, product design, apparel, medicine, transportation, aerospace, industry and the environment. It highlights successful collaborations between design, industry and science. Large, full-colour illustrations and essays by some of today's most influential designers and scientists trace the extraordinary developments made in textiles over the last twenty years and suggest what is to come. Tradition, technology, beauty and strength are combined in the materials and products presented in this volume. Providing inspiration and endless new possibilities for design, these textiles are increasingly at the centre of the manmade environment in which we live.
