Just as I was philosophizing about great things to upcycle and multifunctional clothing, I bumped across this amazing, stunning, great fabric. Or, calling it a fabric just seems a bit too dull. This Sonic Fabric , invented by artist Alyce Santoro , consists half of woven audio cassette tapes, half cotton. The post-consumer polyester tape is one of the strongest of it's kind and creates an extremely durable fabric, but the best part is probably it's ability to PLAY MUSIC! By moving the tape heads from a walkman across the fabric, you can listen to the recorded sounds. And so Santoro created a Sonic Rythm Dress for musician John Fishman with special tapehead gloves which he played live in concert some years ago.

Alyce Santoro says about her source of inspiration "When I was a kid I used to imagine that I could hear Cat Stevens or Beethoven's 6th or whatever had been recorded onto the tape wafting out into the air if the wind hit the tell-tail just the right way. Years later, I learned about Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags. Colorful squares of fabric silkscreened with mantras are hung outdoors in auspicious locations where their blessings can be activated and sent off into the world on the wind. It seemed a natural progression to me to combine these two concepts to create a fabric with sounds I considered sacred woven into it."

The sonic fabric is produced industrially in the US and available per yard from Designtex.