Flexible wearable composite fabric for stable structural color and human movement monitoring under various ambient temperatures

Abstract Intelligent fabrics have been widely investigated owing to their great potential for applications in the field of wearable electronics. Despite significant progress having been made in research on intelligent fabrics, it is still a challenge to combine stable color rendering and sensing capability. In this study, an effective method was developed to prepare a double‐sided color composite fabric with hydrophobic water vapor permeability, stable color rendering and excellent sensing properties at different temperatures. The intelligent structural color‐changing properties of blue‐, green‐ and orange‐colored fabrics are based on monodisperse polystyrene supported silica (PS@SiO 2 ) microspheres of 195, 286 and 301 nm size, respectively. Meanwhile, the structural color does not change as the angle changes. Then, polydimethylsiloxane‐modified waterborne polyurethane and ionic liquid were used as adhesives, which not only enhance the interfacial interaction between PS@SiO 2 microspheres and fabric, but also endow the composite fabric with sensing performance and hydrophobicity. When applied to human joint motion detection, the composite fabric‐based sensors show good sensitivity (strain coefficient ~ 3.91) and excellent cycling stability (300 times). Simultaneously, the composite fabric has good hydrophobicity (~134°) and excellent water permeability (~410 g m −2 d −1 ). More interestingly, the structural color and sensing performance still hold up well under varying ambient temperatures (−30 to 90 °C) or the mild effects of soaking, washing and freezing. This research provides a novel method for the development of intelligent fabrics with structural color and sensing capability under a range of ambient temperatures. © 2026 Society of Chemical Industry.