The next big thing in fashion may be vibrating clothes that create different sensations on your skin – like clouds, water or rocks – to make you feel calmer, stronger or more confident.

Clothing has traditionally served to project images to the outside world, like attractiveness, wealth or professionalism. But Ana Tajadura-Jiménez at Charles III University of Madrid, Spain, and her colleagues wondered if it could also be engineered to change how we feel on the inside.

To explore this idea, they sewed tiny vibrating motors – each 10 millimetres wide …