Does anyone have any advice on how we could move ahead? I have been planning to approach design firms and attend meetups (a quick search did not bring any interesting ones in Toronto). Any one been through this experience?
Fashion, textile, and industrial design happen offline, to the degree that people only learn about trunk shows from visiting the hosting boutique in advance. No Facebook event listings, no meetup groups.
You want to talk to fashion accessory designers, textile designers, and industrial designers, to even get an idea of the kind of possibilities there are. If you get serious about you'll want all of them in the room at once.
You'll probably have a hard time finding someone with experience working directly in the materials you need, especially if you're trying to make your device more like a glove and less like a gauntlet, but there are people out there.
This person, for example: http://creativemornings.com/talks/kate-hartman
Or this person: http://research.ocadu.ca/socialbody/blog/toronto-wearables-m...
Or this person: http://www.erinlewis.ca/Home.html
Design firms aren't likely to take you seriously unless you have five figures as an opening spend on what you could get out a few hours of conversations and a lot of playing around, but you will eventually need actual expertise. When searching online, "soft electronics," "fashionable technology," "wearable electronics," and the like are better terms for the integration expertise, but you'll need to go offline for the rest of it. Sewing classes, your local fashion institute, etc.
Good luck!