Wireless Anywear

It was only a matter of time before colorful, interchangeable phone faceplates gave way to bolder fashion statements. In an effort to make wireless devices less gauche, designers such as ufunction, Levi Strauss and even staid Brooks Brothers, which invented seersucker and the sack suit, have added enough handset- and PDA-size pouches in their summer and fall lines to shame a kangaroo.

One example is Dockers' "Hands-Free Khakis," which include a pocket on each thigh: one sized for a PDA, the other for a handset. The pants hit the racks in July.

"They're designed in response to a changing business-casual environment," said Kelly Moore, Levi Strauss & Company marketing communications manager, Dockers.

For another changing environment, such as rain, there's ufunction's "Cell Hoodie," a nylon pullover that the company says "holds your cell phone in a cute pouch right in front of you." Ufunction also offers a line of phone-size beaded and flowered bags, a sort of counterculture counterpart to the usual leather holsters.

For hard-core wireless users, can battery bandoleers be far behind? Maybe not, if The Electric Shoe Company has its way. Its prototype shoes charge batteries as the wearer walks, thanks to pressure and flexing on a piezoelectric device in the heel that generates electricity. In July, their inventor, Trevor Baylis, put them through, literally, a dry run in the Namibian desert.

Far-fetched? Perhaps. But it beats walking around the office wearing something that reads, "My Boss Went To Supercomm, And All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt."