2078, August 10
At an official event in Milan, the Italian company Nannini Clothes presented its first collection of clothes with built-in molecular assemblers. The event, which took place just hours ago, gathered in the fashion capital some of the leading representatives of the technology and fashion industries, as well as journalists, among them a correspondent from Streampla.net.
The collection includes sets of women’s and men’s pullovers, turtlenecks, trousers, skirts, dresses, as well as T-shirts. The company promises that the product range will soon expand.
Considered one of the most promising technologies in existence today, nanoassemblers are machines the size of a few molecules and are capable of manipulating matter atom by atom. In this way, they can theoretically alter any object, destroy it, or create it anew with almost no effort. For this purpose, they use materials from the surrounding environment, processing them at the molecular level.
Nanoassemblers are already used in various fields of manufacturing, but this is the first integration of such machines into clothing. This approach will allow Nannini Clothes’ models to repair themselves, as well as to change their properties and colors in line with fashion trends.
An inspiring future
“It is my great pleasure to present the world’s first clothes with built-in nanoassemblers. They mark a revolution in the fashion industry, which in perspective will completely change our concept of clothing. Although they do not reveal the full potential of clothes with built-in nanoassemblers, these first models outline the future of this promising segment — a future in which we will be able to change our appearance in a matter of seconds by simply downloading a new fashion line into the clothes while they are on us, and they will transform in seconds,” said Richard Drexler, president and chief technology officer of the company.
He even hinted that one of the next fashion lines of the fashion giant will be announced at a special party, where visitors will come wearing their old clothes, but exactly at midnight they will transform, and everyone will find themselves dressed in the new models.
The risks
The advantages of clothing with built-in nanoassemblers are numerous. However, this new segment also carries a number of risks, and experts and media have already pointed out that it represents a serious step toward loosening regulatory requirements regarding the proximity of working nanoassemblers to the human body.
Such molecular machines are used in many other sectors, including the creation of various consumer goods. In all previous cases, however, the assemblers cease to be active when the product comes into contact with the human body. Nannini Clothes’ apparel is the first in which the miniature robots will function while the clothes are on their owners’ bodies.
Despite the Italian company’s assurances that the technology has been tested many times in real-world conditions and that all safety measures required by nanoassembly regulatory authorities have been taken, some experts raise the question — what will happen if the built-in assemblers start to “eat” the wearer’s body? It is worth recalling that a once-popular hypotheses about the end of the world — the gray goo scenario — is related precisely to out-of-control molecular assemblers that could consume all matter on the planet, turning it into something else. This is why one scandalously famous futurist writer has already called the Nannini Clothes’ newly presented fashion models “doomsday clothes.”