Commuter x Jacquard LEVI

LEVI’S HAS BEEN making its iconic trucker jacket since 1962, but its latest iteration – dubbed the “Commuter x Jacquard” – incorporates electrically conductive yarn in its weave and sees the company take a position in the rapidly emerging wearable-tech market.

Developed in collaboration with Google’s Project Jacquard – part of the tech giant’s Advanced Technology and Projects in-house incubator – the jacket pairs gesture-sensitive fibres in the left sleeve with a Bluetooth tag that pairs via an app with your smartphone.

The app enables the user to customise gestures, such as fingertip brushing, and swiping. The system responds to touch, communicating through earbuds a limited range of information including time and GPS instructions. Other gestures control music playback and comms.

The conductive fibres are unaffected by water, so the jacket is fully washable – as long as the Bluetooth tag is removed first. The wearable tech market will hit $34 billion annually by the end of the decade, so this probably won’t be Levi’s only foray into smart clothing.