The future of fashion weeks: do you have an opinion?

This is a bit of a different post to usual – a call for content if you will. Over the past two years, Fashion & Mash has grown to have readers from many fascinating parts of the industry – both in brand and in agency, all doing interesting things in their own right, but more importantly with a lot of things to say on this space.

Now, I’m looking for a bit of a view on where this industry’s seasonal fashion week shows can go – my very own crowdsourcing you could say. Does the old model still work? Does it need to change? How do we better align the communications and operations side of what our design houses and retailers do? As leaders in the digital field, you’re the rightly placed disruptors for these businesses – can you shake it up? Do you want to? Does it need it?

If you have any thoughts, on the record, or just as easily off (honestly), I would love to pick your brain. Let me know! Drop me an email anytime, whether it’s just with one sentence or two, or for a bigger conversation with a promised drink at the other end too. I have my own thoughts, and with recent discussions they’re rapidly evolving, but yours will really help fuel this fire…

Thank you!

Transparent display could spell future for shop windows – CES

Amid all the tech trends to come out of CES this year, it was the Transparent Display Case from Samsung that particularly stood out from a fashion perspective.

Seemingly a glass box (in the above example holding a shoe), the front is in fact a see-through screen linked up to a built-in PC and speakers. What that means is videos are able to play over the top of real-life items, enhancing rather than distorting their view.

It might just be a 22″ screen at the moment, but as PSFK reports, what place does that sound more relevant than in the store windows and retail shelves of the future? See it in action in the video below.

“[The display] allows images and animations to dynamically interact with the merchandise inside the showcase while still enabling passers-by to view the product,” reads the write-up from Samsung, who refers to it as “a new era of creative display in digital retail design”.

Now, add that idea to the transparent smart window it launched last year, and we might be on to something.

Lacoste film envisions intelligent polo shirts of the future

 

Lacoste is celebrating its 80th birthday and honouring the visionary spirit of its founder, Rene Lacoste, with a video short that highlights how future technology might impact the classic polo shirt.

Created by agency MNSTR, the spot sees the item reinterpreted as an intelligent and dynamic piece of design – one that can change colour to its surroundings, adjust its crocodile logo at the touch of a finger and even add longer length sleeves or better fitting shoulders appropriate to the occasion.

“[It's] an intelligent polo, a connected polo, one that listens to its environment… a polo with no limits,” reads the write-up.

As though the surface of a tablet or smartphone, the models are seen effortlessly swiping, pinching and adapting various features of the styles they wear throughout. A tennis player keeps score on her front in another frame for instance, while a cyclist turns her horizontal stripes into portrait ones.

And that’s not all… While the spot highlights an “attainable future”, a dedicated microsite at www.lacoste-future.com encourages consumers to imagine “possibilities [that] are endless”. Accordingly, they are invited to send in their own vision of tomorrow’s polo shirt via Facebook.com/Lacoste. The most original and unique ideas will then be featured on that page at a later date.

Appropriately, the initiative launches for December 12, 2012, otherwise known as 12.12.12, which also ties in with the code name Rene Lacoste first gave to the polo shirt in 1933: L.12.12.

You might also like this story: Bloomingdale’s pushes wearable technology with Microsoft Printing Dress for #FNO and this infographic on wearble tech

Japan photo booth prints lifelike 3D sculptures

In case you didn’t already spot this, the world’s first 3D printing photo booth just popped up in Japan. Yes, photo booth – in you step, the camera scanner goes off, and out pops a 3D figure of yourself.

Omote 3D Shashin Kan, as it’s called, is being shown in Harajuku’s Eye of Gyre art gallery from this weekend through January 14. It uses rapid prototyping technology to gather accurate data from its subjects over a 15-minute period, including their posture, shape, size, hair colour and even clothing. The data is uploaded to create a CAD design which is then printed into lifelike miniature sculptures in your choice of 10cm, 15cm or 20cm tall.

For now, they’re not particularly cheap – $258, $393 and $516 respectively – nor are they necessarily 100% accurate; according to Dazed Digital, movement, light reflection or intricate textures could throw up unusable results.

But, they’re another great indication of the direction this technology is moving.

Ok so who actually wants a 3D sculpture of themselves you might ask (quite a few people actually, but that’s by the by). For argument’s sake, then, imagine this concept taken further in the future and applied to fashion consumption…

In you step with your favourite but super worn pair of jeans on, the prototyping does its work (you choose fabric as you go and such like), and out you come with a brand new pair, perfectly shaped to fit. Or how about that coat from three seasons ago that’s falling apart at the seams, or a dress you’ve been desperate to replicate in another colour? After all, this bikini reportedly just became the first completely 3D-printed article of clothing.

Not so unfeasible now, is it.

ThingLink’s interactive Twitter images could be a natural fit for fashion brands

Interactive images on Twitter? That sounds like something that would translate well to the fashion industry…

In which case, it’s worth knowing about ThingLink. A tool that let’s you “tag any image, with any content”, it was referred to by Mashable this week as having huge potential for brands and marketers following news of its link up with Twitter.

“Icons pop up when users hover over the image then, with a click, open up YouTube channels, audio clips, Facebook or Pinterest profiles, home pages, contact forms or anything else you would normally be able to link to the old-fashioned way,” reads their story. Click here to see an example of it in action.

They use an NBA team to illustrate an instance where images enhanced with links would work particularly well. But let’s translate it to fashion. Imagine a catwalk shot from (for argument’s sake, the easy option) Burberry. Now imagine if you could have a box that linked to play the full show on YouTube, or how about a click-through to the make-up looks up close.

Then we could also add in the Facebook page of the brand, not to mention one to Pinterest or to their all-new Instagram profile where all the backstage shots are housed. We might even consider adding the social profile of the model, thanks to a couple of nice integrated quotes from her. Now how about a link on one side that plays the soundtrack of the event via SoundCloud, or better yet sends fans to iTunes to buy it.

We could also think about an info box that lists detail about the product. And of course, a direct line into Burberry.com to enable everyone to pre-order it too.

The great thing is, ThingLink is ridiculously easy to use – so I did roughly the above with a Burberry SS13 show pic, and here immediately is the result (non-interactive version embedded below too).

As Mashable nicely sums up: “That single photo, in essence, just became a platform of its own.”

Check out more about what ThingLink is up to in the real-world with NFC, via this story from The Next Web, too.