Laws of Attraction: Designer Transforms Fashion With Magnetized Apparel

Fashion entrepreneur Ian Stikeleather wants to rethink how we keep our clothes on.

Clothing fasteners are technology. Buttons with button holes didn’t appear until the 1400s. The zipper showed up in the late 1800s, but wasn’t widely adopted until the 1930s. Velcro was patented in 1951 and rose to prominence on the back of the space race. Stikeleather wants to add a new chapter to the fastener history books with a product line based on magnetic closures that he calls Affectation.

Affectation, being funded through Kickstarter, is a system of modular clothes that use hidden magnets to replace buttons, pins, zippers or other fasteners. Stikeleather points out that magnets are much easier to work with for people with limited mobility in their hands from things like arthritis, but ease of use is just the beginning.

“Throughout history, clothing has served two functions: to protect us from the elements or identify us with a social group,” says Stikeleather. “I put the protect-ourselves-from-the-elements part to the side.” He chose instead to focus on how people could quickly change what their clothes say about them.

An Affectation outfit generally starts with a simple base garment, like a black dress, a vest, or a shirt. Secreted around the garment are magnets, to which users (sorry, wearers) can attach a whole range of accessories. A dress collar can be removed and replaced with a hood, while buttons are replaced with studs and spikes. On a vest, shoulder lapels can grow and shrink or disappear entirely, while chains can be hung symmetrically or asymmetrically all over the place.

Spend some time with the company’s demo video and you’ll get a sense of what’s possible. It’s like Lego for clothes, and it’s hard not to think about super-spy disguises and Superman in a phone booth as you watch the transformations.