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ASIA KEPKA MORE PEOPLE TO WATCH

In the lobby of the U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Mass., a mannequin models timeless military fashion: black beret, battle-dress uniform and lace-up boots. But elsewhere within the 50-year-old cinder-block buildings, plans are afoot to clothe the future warrior—and perhaps us—in the stuff of science fiction.

Since the close of World War II, the center—better known as Natick Labs—has coaxed teams of scientists to dream up ways to outfit and feed U.S. soldiers. Much of the research and development conducted here has found its way into civilian use in products such as energy bars, freeze-dried coffee and water-repellent fabrics.

Increasingly, the military is spreading around its R.-and-D. prowess in exchange for the commercial sector's speedy production and ability to make the research pay for itself. To rush the creation of clothing suitable for Afghan winters, for instance, Natick came up with a way to weatherproof even the thinnest fabric by baking silicone into it, then collaborated with the design house for North Face to create battle gear as light as a nylon jogging suit. The new technology should someday help civilians achieve a sleeker winter silhouette.

Drawing boards at Natick currently feature chameleon-like camouflage clothes that change colors to match the environment, vests and glasses with embedded computers, and electrospun clothing. The last involves a process in which a solution is charged with high-voltage electricity and spun, like cotton candy, onto a form. Military scientists want to use the process to custom-make instant haz-mat suits by spraying sealants onto clothing. But the prospects for nonwoven, seamless civilian clothing are tantalizing.

The Natick research perhaps most coveted by designers—of underwear or SUVs or recliners—is also the most prosaic: its reams of data on soldiers' body dimensions. Claire Gordon, a biological anthropologist and senior scientist at Natick, says she fields up to 300 requests a year for her database of 133 measurements of each of 10,000 soldiers. In battle as in life, after all, fashion is nothing without fit.

—By Lisa Takeuchi Cullen/Natick