So many things are becoming solar-powered these days, from lanterns that take the edge off during loadshedding to backpacks. Even your fashionable clothing and accessories can be powered by the sun. You might question why they would need to be, since they’re not doing anything other than making you look good. That’s where things become interesting…
Charge Your Phone with Your Dress
Don’t you hate it when your phone battery dies on you and you can’t charge it ’cause you’re on the move? A solar-powered dress can change all that. Dutch fashion designer Pauline Van Dongen has designed solar-powered clothing, with one of her prized pieces being a dress that contains 72 flexible solar cells on it which have been embedded directly into foldable panels on the front. The dress simply needs to be worn in direct sunlight for approximately an hour in order to be able to charge a dead phone battery by 50 percent!
Clever Sunnies
Protecting your eyes from the sun’s damaging UV light is highly important. So when you misplace your sunglasses, you know how frustrating it can be. But a solar-powered pair can remind you to take them with you. Designed by Australian company Tzukuri, the sunglasses contain a chip that’s charged by a solar cell built into them so that it can send signals to your iPhone if you don’t have your sunnies with you. It will alert you when you’re five or more metres away from your sunglasses, even letting you know in which location they are. As it states on the Tzukuri site, the company is starting a fight against the 26 kilotonnes of plastic waste that occur due to 1 in 2 people losing a pair of sunglasses in the first year.
Pretty Solar Bags
Solar-powered handbags can be useful and gorgeous. That’s the thinking behind the solar-powered handbag created by design company Diffus. The bag contains 100 small photovoltaic cells that are emblazoned on the outside of the bag. They look like a trendy copper pattern, but they can charge your cellphone. The bag also does more: when you open it up, fiber optics within are activated, lighting up your bag so you can find your keys or other items at night.
