The New Fabric of Baltimore weaves together the people, places, and companies in Baltimore's smart garment industry into one connected ecosystem, and builds communities around them. Baltimore is becoming the capital of smart garment production, and the Smart Garment Center of Excellence (SGCE), a Baltimore-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is leading the way.

The name reflects Baltimore's past and its future. The city that was once one of the nation's capitals of fabric and garment production is now becoming one of the world's capitals of fabric and garment innovation. The Smart Garment Center is connecting the people with ideas to the people with the know-how, with every new connection making a stronger Baltimore and a new generation of advanced manufacturing power.

The New Fabric of Baltimore includes everyone in the city's smart garment ecosystem: workers, students, designers, entrepreneurs, brands, manufacturers, universities, healthcare institutions, funders, and the neighborhoods where the work happens. Each one is a thread, and the Smart Garment Center connects them.

The Smart Garment Center's mission is to make Baltimore a leading place to design, develop, and manufacture smart garments. That means a city where everything needed to succeed in this emerging industry, from talent and research to prototyping, testing, and production, is woven together and within reach, and where Baltimore residents get the skilled jobs that come with it.

The New Fabric of Baltimore is the vision and the ecosystem: the people, places, and companies in Baltimore's smart garment industry, woven together into one connected whole. The Smart Garment Center of Excellence (SGCE) is the 501(c)(3) nonprofit that connects them, and the name of the physical facility it plans to build in Baltimore.

The Smart Garment Center of Excellence (SGCE) is a Baltimore-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit and the physical facility it plans to build in the city. The nonprofit leads The New Fabric of Baltimore, and the facility will bring education, innovation, and job creation in smart garment production together in one place.

The Smart Garment Center of Excellence was founded in 2026 as a Baltimore-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

The Smart Garment Center facility is planned for West Open Works (WOW) in Baltimore, Maryland. It will work alongside Open Works and Coppin State University, forming a connected network for training, product development, and manufacturing across the city.

West Open Works (WOW) is the planned home of the Smart Garment Center in Baltimore. Together with Open Works, it connects the Smart Garment Center to Baltimore's community of makers and small manufacturers.

The Smart Garment Center of Excellence, the nonprofit behind The New Fabric of Baltimore, is led by Executive Director Darren Fradin. Its founding board includes Ken Malone, CEO of Early Charm, and Leon Pinkett of BARCO.

A smart garment is clothing that can sense, respond, generate power, or deliver therapy because technology is built into the fabric itself. Instead of strapping a device to the body, the garment becomes the device. Sensors woven or printed into the textile read heart rate, breathing, muscle activity, and temperature. Conductive yarns carry those signals like flexible wiring. Thin, flexible solar and energy-harvesting materials can power the garment from sunlight or movement. Therapeutic textiles can deliver heat, light, or electrical stimulation to the body. Smart garments are used in healthcare, elder safety, athletics, defense, and workplace safety, and new materials are making them more comfortable, durable, and sustainable.

Smart garments do four main things. They sense, collecting data from the body or the environment. They respond, changing temperature or stiffness or sending alerts. They generate power, using flexible solar materials or fibers that turn movement into electricity. And they treat, delivering heat, light, or electrical fields for therapy and recovery. The most advanced smart garments combine several of these in a single piece of clothing.

Smart garments work by building electrically or chemically active materials directly into textiles. Functional materials such as conductive yarns, piezoelectric and piezoresistive yarns, nanomaterials, and electrospun nanofibers are woven, knitted, printed, or formed into nonwoven fabrics. Sensors in the garment pick up signals from the body or environment, conductive pathways carry those signals, and a small electronics module processes the data or sends it to a phone or other device.

E-textiles are fabrics that conduct electricity or contain electronic components. Smart garments are finished pieces of clothing made with e-textiles that sense, respond, or communicate. In short, e-textiles are the material and smart garments are the product.

Conductive yarns are threads that carry electricity, usually made by coating or blending fibers with metals such as silver, copper, or stainless steel. In smart garments they act like flexible wiring, and some specialized yarns can also work as sensors that respond to pressure or stretch.

Piezoelectric and piezoresistive yarns are fibers that turn the fabric itself into a sensor. Piezoelectric yarns generate a small electric charge when they bend, stretch, or are pressed, so they can sense motion and even harvest energy without a battery. Piezoresistive yarns change their electrical resistance when stretched or compressed, which lets a garment measure pressure, breathing, posture, and joint movement. Woven or knitted into clothing, these yarns replace rigid sensors with soft, washable textile ones.

Phase-change materials absorb and release heat as they melt and solidify, helping a garment keep the wearer at a steady temperature. Shape-memory materials change shape in response to heat, so a garment can tighten, loosen, or open vents on its own. Both let clothing adapt to the body and environment without electronics.

Nanomaterials are materials engineered at the scale of billionths of a meter, such as graphene, carbon nanotubes, silver nanowires, and metal oxide nanoparticles. In smart garments, they make fabrics conductive, sensitive to pressure or strain, antimicrobial, or UV-protective while keeping the fabric thin, flexible, and breathable. Nanomaterials are what let a normal-feeling textile behave like an electronic component.

Electrospinning uses a high-voltage electric field to draw a polymer solution into extremely fine fibers, often hundreds of times thinner than a human hair. The resulting nanofiber layers have enormous surface area and tiny pores, which makes them well suited to sensors, filtration, wound dressings, drug delivery, and breathable protective layers. Nanomaterials can be blended directly into electrospun fibers to make them conductive or responsive.

Nonwovens are fabrics made by bonding fibers together mechanically, thermally, or chemically instead of weaving or knitting them. They are fast and inexpensive to produce at scale and are already used in medical gowns, masks, filters, and wipes. For smart garments, nonwovens, including electrospun nanofiber layers, make an efficient base for printed electronics, sensors, and single-use medical wearables.

Energy-harvesting textiles turn the wearer's movement, body heat, or surrounding light into electricity. Piezoelectric yarns generate a charge when they bend or stretch, thermoelectric materials use the difference between body and air temperature, and solar fibers capture light. These materials could one day let smart garments power themselves without bulky batteries.

Yes. Thin-film solar cells and solar fibers can be built into flexible fabrics, letting clothing generate electricity from sunlight to power sensors and small electronics. Making solar textiles lighter, more flexible, and more durable is an active area of research.

Many can. Most commercial smart garments keep their textile sensors and wiring in the fabric, while a small electronics module unclips before laundering. These garments usually need gentle care, such as a cold, delicate cycle and air drying, because heat and twisting can damage embedded components. Building smart garments that last through everyday wear and repeated washing is one of the biggest opportunities in the field, and the manufacturers who master it will help define the industry.

Biochar is a carbon-rich material made by heating plant waste or other organic matter with little or no oxygen. In textiles, biochar is being explored as a lower-impact alternative to petroleum-based carbon in fibers, coatings, and conductive materials. It can add properties such as odor control and thermal regulation, turns agricultural waste into a useful input, and stores carbon rather than releasing it.

Biosensing is the measurement of signals from the body through sensors built into clothing. Today, micro textile electrodes or conductive filaments in contact with the skin can record the heart's electrical activity (ECG) and muscle activity (EMG), stretch and pressure sensors can track breathing, posture, and movement, and thermal sensors can measure skin temperature. Right around the corner are garments that monitor blood pressure without a cuff, read stress hormones and other biomarkers in sweat, and spot early warning signs of illness before symptoms appear. Because the sensors are part of the garment, they collect data continuously and comfortably throughout the day.

Sweat sensing uses chemical sensors in a garment or patch to analyze sweat for biomarkers such as electrolytes, lactate, glucose, and hydration levels. It offers a noninvasive way to track how the body is responding to exercise, heat, illness, or stress, without needles or lab visits. Sweat sensing is a fast-growing area of smart textile research.

In healthcare, smart garments can continuously monitor vital signs such as heart rhythm, breathing, temperature, and movement outside a clinic. That makes them useful for remote patient monitoring, rehabilitation, fall detection, and predictive care that flags problems early.

Smart garments can help flag health problems early by collecting continuous data that AI can analyze for meaningful changes. Shifts in heart rhythm, breathing, sleep, gait, or skin temperature can signal developing issues before symptoms become obvious. This kind of AI-enabled predictive healthcare is the focus of Baltimore's federal Tech Hub designation.

Smart garments can help older adults live independently and safely by detecting falls, tracking changes in gait and balance that signal rising fall risk, and alerting family members or caregivers when something is wrong. Because the sensors are built into everyday clothing, there is no device to remember to wear or charge each day.

Wearable technology already plays a role in cancer care. Wearable devices that deliver Tumor Treating Fields, low-intensity alternating electric fields that disrupt cancer cell division, are FDA-approved for several cancers, including glioblastoma, mesothelioma, metastatic non-small cell lung cancer, and locally advanced pancreatic cancer. Fabric-based treatments are earlier in development. Researchers at Baltimore-area universities are working with fabrics that have shown promising results in shrinking tumors in laboratory studies. This research is still at an early stage, but it points to a future where some cancer therapies could be delivered through comfortable, garment-like textiles.

A smartwatch measures from one point on the wrist. A smart garment places sensors across the body, closer to the heart, lungs, muscles, joints, nerve endings, and blood vessels, which can give fuller and more consistent readings. Smart garments are also worn like normal clothing, so people are more likely to use them all day.

Some are. A smart garment intended to diagnose, monitor, or treat a medical condition is regulated as a medical device and generally needs FDA clearance or approval. Garments designed for general wellness, fitness, or comfort usually are not. Developers often start with wellness products and pursue medical clearance as their clinical evidence grows.

Baltimore is home to world-renowned hospitals and medical research institutions, a large healthcare workforce, and a federal Tech Hub focused on AI-enabled predictive healthcare. That puts smart garment developers close to the clinical expertise, research, and patient-care settings needed to design, test, and validate health-focused products.

Baltimore was once a major center of American garment manufacturing, and much of that skilled work left with the factories. Today the city has what the next generation of apparel needs: research universities, a large healthcare sector, a federally designated Tech Hub focused on AI and predictive healthcare, industrial space, and a workforce ready for skilled manufacturing jobs.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Baltimore was one of the largest men's clothing manufacturing centers in the United States, with thousands of workers in factories and workshops across the city. Most of that production later moved away. The New Fabric of Baltimore aims to bring garment manufacturing back to the city in a new, technology-driven form.

Baltimore holds a federal Tech Hub designation focused on AI and predictive healthcare. Smart garments with built-in biosensors are one of the ways that health data gets collected, so the Smart Garment Center connects Baltimore's manufacturing base to the city's broader health technology strategy.

The Smart Garment Center focuses on bringing skilled manufacturing work back into Baltimore neighborhoods, including West Baltimore. Local production means local jobs, local suppliers, and new businesses built by Baltimore residents.

Companies can partner by piloting products, co-developing materials or components, investing in Baltimore's smart garment companies, hosting training, or sponsoring programs. Email info@smartgarmentcenter.org with a short description of your company and what you want to build.

Yes. Supporting startups and product developers through prototyping is a core part of the Smart Garment Center's plan. Founders can email info@smartgarmentcenter.org to discuss their product and stage of development.

The Smart Garment Center works to connect companies with Baltimore manufacturers, trained workers, and suppliers so that products can move from prototype to production in the city.

Yes. The Smart Garment Center connects university researchers, materials companies, and healthcare partners to test new smart textile materials and applications, with a focus on work that can lead to products made in Baltimore.

Students, job seekers, designers, entrepreneurs, manufacturers, researchers, and funders can all get involved with the Smart Garment Center. Email info@smartgarmentcenter.org to say who you are and how you'd like to take part.

The Smart Garment Center of Excellence is funded through a mix of philanthropic grants, corporate sponsorships, individual donations, and public funding for workforce and economic development.

Yes. The Smart Garment Center of Excellence is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, so donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. To give, visit [donation page URL] or email info@smartgarmentcenter.org to discuss sponsorships and grant partnerships.

Email info@smartgarmentcenter.org to reach the Smart Garment Center and The New Fabric of Baltimore team.