How fashion tech could be the coolest weapon against climate change

The image of high fashion has long been tied to aesthetic indulgence rather than environmental necessity. Yet as temperatures rise globally, what we wear is no longer only a question of style, but of survival. About 3.6 billion people live in areas highly vulnerable to climate change, and from 2000 to 2019 an estimated 480,000 people died annually from heat-related causes. In a world where heat waves are becoming both hotter and more frequent, the question is not whether we can afford to innovate in personal cooling—but whether we can afford not to.

Reimagining clothing as climate infrastructure

This is the context for a quiet revolution underway in Hong Kong. Researchers at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), led by Prof. Dahua Shou of the School of Fashion and Textiles, are developing what might be the first truly intelligent, sustainable personal cooling systems. Shou’s recent paper in Science outlines a next-generation approach that integrates advanced textiles, AI-driven wearables and principles from thermodynamics to create garments that actively respond to the body’s needs.

From prototype to wardrobe: The aesthetic and ethical challenge

Unlike passive “cooling” fabrics marketed today, typically blends that wick moisture or reflect sunlight, Shou’s work treats the garment as a dynamic system. His team’s designs combine the four classical cooling mechanisms: radiation, conduction, convection and evaporation within a closed-loop, AI-enabled framework. In practice, that means sensors embedded in the fabric can read real-time physiological data, algorithms can predict when the wearer is about to overheat, and miniature actuators adjust the garment’s cooling power accordingly.

If this sounds futuristic, it is, but prototypes already exist. The iActive™ sportswear line, for instance, uses low-voltage “artificial sweat glands” and a root-like liquid network mapped to sweat zones, ejecting perspiration as droplets up to three times faster than the human body naturally can. OmniCoolDry™, a skinlike fabric developed by the same team, reflects solar and ground radiation while emitting mid-infrared body heat, lowering skin temperature by about 5°C compared to conventional textiles. And SweatMD, an all-textile wearable, channels fresh sweat through a microfluidic network while using sensing yarns to track biomarkers such as glucose and potassium, offering molecular-level health insights on fatigue and dehydration.

What’s striking about these innovations is not only their technical sophistication but also their aesthetic plausibility. In a fashion context, “intelligent” has often meant bulky or gadget-heavy, wires, battery packs, rigid sensors. Shou’s approach suggests a different future: lightweight, washable, durable garments that look and feel like clothing rather than hardware. These are pieces that could sit comfortably in a gym bag, a work uniform or even a ready-to-wear collection, rather than a laboratory.

From a sustainability perspective, the implications are equally significant. Air conditioning accounts for an estimated 10 percent of global electricity consumption, and demand is expected to triple by 2050. Personal cooling, if effective, could reduce reliance on building-level climate control, especially in developing regions where energy infrastructure is already under strain. Shou’s designs use recyclable materials and on-body energy harvesting, including flexible solar cells, to power active cooling without drawing from the grid.

There are, of course, challenges. Sweat management remains an Achilles’ heel: heavy perspiration can saturate fabrics, reducing their permeability and radiative efficiency. Real-time adaptive thermoregulation, while ideal, is complex to implement across diverse physiologies and climates. Standardised metrics, such as cooling power per watt or thermal sensation, are still lacking, making it difficult to compare products or convince consumers. And perhaps most dauntingly for the fashion industry, any mass-market success will require interdisciplinary collaboration between textile manufacturers, electronics companies and AI developers.

Yet the PolyU work offers a blueprint for how the fashion-tech sector might mature. By integrating human-centred design with scalable manufacturing, intelligent wearables could shift from novelty to necessity, expanding not only our comfort zones but also our ability to work, travel and simply live in hotter climates. Fashion has always been about responding to its time. In the age of extreme heat, that response may no longer be just seasonal or stylistic. It may be existential.