She has been called an haute couture designer and a digital knitter. But the title that Genevieve Dion prefers most is "design scientist." Dion had a stellar career as a designer of bespoke clothing and accessories even before she arrived at Drexel in 2007 to direct the fashion design program at the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design. Her clients included rock stars like Tina Turner and Elvis Costello and her designs appeared in elite venues such as Barneys New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

At Drexel, Dion's fascination with manipulating fabric evolved from high design to high technology. She recognized that the future of fibers and textiles lay in their ability to store and transmit energy and information. Scientists were talking about "wearable electronics." with potential applications in health, energy, communications and national defense. But the field was in its infancy.

Dion, who also has a master's degree in industrial design, quickly grasped that she would need to combine her mastery of textiles and product design with expertise in biotechnology, medicine, material sciences, electronics, and computer science. And she saw Drexel as the ideal place to build those collaborations and give them a home.

Dion’s vision of a transdisciplinary hub for functional fabrics research at Drexel took shape in 2012, when a leading textile-related manufacturer offered philanthropic seed money. Combining this donor-fueled venture capital with startup space inside Drexel’s ExCITe Center, Dion launched what is now the Center for Functional Fabrics (CFF). 

Knitting as a rapid prototyping technology for industry

The fabric samples arrayed around the lab may look like knitted socks, gloves, dresses and belts, but in fact, they are prototypes for biomedical textiles, soft-robotics and garment devices.

"I like to think of computerized knitting as a form of 3-D printing. We can take one yarn and row by row, layer by layer, garments emerge in three dimensions," Dion explains. The knitting done at CFF is ideal for producing rapid prototypes, and the same equipment can quickly scale up designs for mass production.

"Then you start mixing in new materials, such as metal yarn for conductivity and you end up with questions such as, 'What if the fabric itself was the medical device? Comfortable, fashionable and constantly sending a stream of critical information to sensors that automatically alert the wearer, or a remote health care worker, at the first sign of a problem.'"

Questions like that led her to find partners in electrical and computer engineering and medicine. One such team has already patented wearable devices designed to measure contraction in pregnant women and respiration in premature infants. The "Bellyband" for pregnant women and infants began clinical trials in 2018 to determine its effectiveness in warning of a potential miscarriage in women or breathing difficulties in newborns.

Our students are the incredible thinkers of tomorrow.

In 2016, The U.S. Department of Defense established the Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA), a $75 million institute established to rejuvenate American textile manufacturing and bring sophisticated new products to market. Drexel is a key stakeholder of AFFOA, along with MIT, Thomas Jefferson University, the Fashion Institute of Technology, North Carolina State University, and the University of Central Florida, all contributing research powerful enough to spur market innovation.
More recently, CFF collaborated with AFFOA to establish the Pennsylvania Fabric Discovery Center (PA FDC), also managed by Dion. The PA FDC focuses on helping companies and innovators take their advanced textile concepts from prototype to product, while also preparing the regional workforce for high quality jobs in this growing market sector.

Early in the spring of 2019, the entire functional fabric enterprise relocated to a new 10,000-square-foot home in Schuylkill Yards. This space includes everything needed for cutting-edge textile research and development and prototyping. It also facilitates collaboration and welcomes visiting researchers. As an anchor tenant in the innovation district taking shape between Amtrak’s 30th Street Station and Drexel’s campus, Dion’s visionary lab will be easily accessible to industry, academia and government.

Watch Genevieve Dion, Owen Montgomery, MD, and Kapil Dandekar, PhD, explain the life-saving potential of their BellyBand.