DecoLeaves: Exploring NFC Technology for Energy Harvesting and Concealed Input on Interactive Fashion with Dynamic Graphics

We present the design and prototype of the DecoLeaves shirt, a battery-free wraparound style shirt that gives the autonomy to its wearer for modifying her appearance by moving a smartphone secretly in the shirt’s pocket. It is designed to express emotions, status or the wearer’s self in general, without being too over the top and can be worn on casual occasions. To achieve its functionality, it utilizes two NFC-based wireless energy harvesting components inside to pocket as a secret input technique to switch leaf-shaped electrochromic (EC) display embellishments on the shoulder without needing an embedded battery on the shirt. Our work contributes the utilization of NFC technology as an energy harvesting technique, as well as a secret input modality for interactive fashion to alter the visual state of the garment.