Though at this time of year it can seem as if advances in “heat-sensing/retaining/wicking” are the breaking news of the fashion world – as an exhibition at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York illustrates – fashion and technology have, in fact, been intertwined for more than two centuries.

New York-based designer Angel Chang, who is known for her colour-changing prints, light-up fabrics and self-heating linings, says: “Fashion is driven by fresh, new ideas and thrives on innovation. Fashion and technology, therefore, go hand-in-hand. The invention of the sewing machine and chemical dyes coincided with the birth of sartorial fashion in the late 19th century”.

The FIT exhibition, featuring 100 pieces from FIT’s archives, highlights some of the ways in which technology has influenced clothing. These range from machine-washable fabrics and the creation of the plastic zip to the artistic and sometimes revolutionary embrace of technology by designers such as Alexander McQueen, Rei Kawakubo, Issey Miyake, Pierre Cardin, Elsa Schiaparelli and Hussein Chalayan.