This article was taken from the September 2014 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by <span class="s1">subscribing online.

This ornate headpiece is brain-reactive bling. Created by designer Lauren Bowker in collaboration with Swarovski, its surface is coated with thousands of lab-grown gemstones engineered to respond to minute heat changes in the skull, caused by the wearer's brain activity. "We used a magnesium-aluminium synthetic stone, which has a similar composition to human bone, and altered it so it was even more receptive to temperature," explains Bowker, 29. Each stone is painted with a chemical coating which changes colour due to heat; her London-based label THEUNSEEN used a similar technique for its environment-sensitive Air jacket (Wired 03.14). "We created a coating so that you get a colour change with a fluctuation within one degree," she says. "Depending on what area of the brain you're using, [the skull] generates different amounts of heat -- so the headpiece visualises the wearer's thought processes."

Although the piece is purely for show, Bowker believes the technique could have other applications. "We've had companies wanting to use it on coma patients to see if there's any response," she says. "It's very non-invasive, and another visual language of what's going on inside the human mind."

Bowker's headpiece will go on display at the Victoria &

Albert Museum in London next March, before becoming part of the prestigious permanent collection. It has also inspired THEUNSEEN's new collection, which launches in September. "We want to show people there's more to wearable technology than putting a load of electronics on someone," she says. Consider it the ultimate thinking cap.

This article was originally published by WIRED UK