Get Smart , the classic comedy spoof that aired in the United States during the late 1960s, featured a range of concealed communication and movementrelated devices, including handkerchief, necktie, and shoe telephones-imaginative gadgets that, in the twenty-first century, no longer seem so far-fetched. What some of these audience -delighting devices, conceived by the show's creators over fifty years ago, have in common with today's electronic textiles and wearables is the ability to respond to external and/or internal stimuli and transmit information. According to IDTechEx, a marketing intelligence and research company, across the globe, sales for these increasingly in -demand e -textiles are projected to top US$780M by 2033. Additionally, the need for effective personal protective equipment (PPE) has continued, rather than peaked, following the beginning of the global Covid-19 pandemic in January 2020, whereby the performance abilities of intelligent athletic, medical, or military textiles outweigh reservations about their production costs.
In Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, a novel by Gabrielle Zevin published in 2022, Aeran Wantanbe aims to educate one of the protagonists about the attributes of beautiful fabrics, specifically, the "Strawberry Thief" pattern by William Morris: "A great textile, like the William Morris Strawberry Thief...isn't simply design...You have to understand the fabrics and what they can bear. You have to understand the dyeing process and how to achieve certain colors and what will make the color last through the ages...This fabric is not just a fabric. It's the story of failure and of perseverance, of the discipline of a craftsman, of the life of an artist."1
