The Virtual Life of Textile Innovations: Exploring Visual Haptics Potentials That Shape Multisensory User Experience

The fashion industry currently needs to accelerate its sustainable transition while also facing an intense digitisation process involving both design and production. Despite the enthusiasm surrounding the opportunities offered by digitisation and the development of recycled, bio-based and low-waste materials, market uptake of textile innovations remains limited. This chapter explores the potential of haptic visuality—the sensation of touching things just by looking at them—to create meaningful interactions for the online experience of textile innovations, to facilitate multisensory experience and thus encouraging better understanding and engagement with these new materials.