Infographic: wearable tech and the significant lack of fashion brand presence

There was a great piece on The Business of Fashion last week looking at the lack of fashion brands in the wearable technology space and calling for them to start taking it more seriously.

This is an industry that’s estimated to be worth $10bn by 2016, making those in the fashion business at risk of “losing highly lucrative real estate on the emerging battleground of the human body”, it highlights.

“People only have two wrists and one face. And personal accessories are where fashion and luxury brands make a sizable chunk of their revenues,” it continues. “As young technology companies slowly but surely start to develop wearables with more evolved aesthetics, will consumers still have room for bracelets, watches and sunglasses that may look good, but lack appealing functionality?”

Footwear retailer Brantano meanwhile, has just released an infographic via Mashable detailing some of the devices that are either on the market already, in prototype or rumoured to be coming. Laid out from head to toe, it includes the likes of Google Glass, of course, followed by the Pebble smart watch, the Lumoback posture belt and a Kinect jacket called Woven.

If it does anything, however, it’s to support the BoF piece – there is next to zero fashion brands present in the list. Will we get to the point where this shifts?

Shopping tool Hukkster hits Time Inc’s top 10 NYC start-up list for 2013

Time Inc has revealed its third annual list of the 10 start-ups to watch in New York City, and… there’s a fashion name in there again.

Hukkster, as it’s called, follows in the footsteps of Fab.com and Warby Parker (in 2012 and 2011 respectively) – highlighted by the Time Inc group as one of the most promising companies to transform the shopping space.

In this instance, it’s a tool that notifies shoppers when the products they want go on sale. Hukkster tracks more than 1,000 popular online stores, allowing any user to add its bookmarklet to their browser and then hit “Hukk It” when there’s an item they want to keep tabs on.

Once the price drops you get an email, a text or push notifications. You can also opt to only find out when it goes down by at least 25% or at least 50%.

According to WSJ’s profile on the start-up in 2012, and its founders Erica Bell and Katie Finnegan, each time a user buys an item they’ve been watching, Hukkster collects a fee for lead generation, using a third-party service that has relationships with more than 18,000 retailers. Its top revenue drivers, back when the piece was written, were J.Crew, Amazon.com’s Shopbop and Macy’s.

Furthermore, in November 2012, the Winklevoss twins led a $750,000 investment in it.

Hukkster appears in Time Inc’s list this year alongside nine other start-ups from a variety of fields. Included in them are ArchetypeMe, Custora, FiftyThree, Fitocracy, Grouper, IMRSV, Klooff, Qwiki and Upworthy.

Third Wave Fashion launches database of fashion tech start-ups

There’s no denying we’re in one of the most lucrative times for fashion and tech start-ups. As reported by The Business of Fashion recently (in debating whether there’s a fashion tech bubble), large sums of capital have been pouring into young companies over the past couple of years, including Moda Operandi ($46 million), Nasty Gal ($49 million), ShoeDazzle ($66 million), BeachMint ($75 million) and Gilt Groupe ($236 million). The latest news in Farfetch’s $20 million and Rent the Runway’s $24.4 million can both be added to that.

Keeping abreast of all this, not to mention the multiple others entering the space on a seemingly daily basis, however, is a heady task. Have you ever wondered just how many there actually are in total for instance? How many of them last past their first year, let alone make returns for their investors? And how many of them are truly relevant to you directly?

Fortunately someone’s been keeping tabs. New York-based consultancy company, Third Wave Fashion, has been tracking the space for two years, and is set to launch a database listing over 650 fashion-focused tech companies in order for us to try and get a handle on it.

Available for paid subscribers, the site is searchable by over 30 different business categories, including image sharing, content-and-commerce, subscription commerce, virtual closets, pre-orders, marketplace and more. These can then be cross-referenced with some 50 tags such as B2B, beauty, luxury and mobile. It also includes listings for 350 investors and 800 founders.

Third Wave Fashion founder, Liza Kindred, said: “The database is a culmination of nearly two years of monitoring the industry. We began tracking companies so we could have a comprehensive view of the landscape, and quickly realized that this information would be valuable to many other people as well.”

She pitches it as a “trusted resource for interested parties such as fashion brands, investors, entrepreneurs, journalists, and emerging designers searching for new platforms for distribution”.

The database will continue to grow as the industry does, but also feature that all-important RIP category for those failed start-ups too.

Further reading: The State of Fashion Tech, a keynote by Liza Kindred

Fashion Hackathon set for MBFW New York, winning app to be launched by CFDA

Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week New York is set to host a “Fashion Hackathon” this February, tasking teams of tech hackers with building an app that solves a challenge facing the industry.

Hosted by Decoded Fashion, who has previously run conferences focused on fashion and technology in both New York and London, the initiative will see fashion and retail executives joining 30 teams on the morning of February 2 to discuss their pain points, the technology they currently use, and the technology they wish existed.

These conversation will inspire the hackers to come up with the new apps, designing and building them within the space of 24 hours.

The best three will then have until February 14 to prepare (with mentorship) for a finale due to take place at MBFW. There they will present to a panel of judges from both the technology and fashion worlds, including Steven Kolb, CEO of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), Harrison Weber of The Next Web, and Benita Singh of Source4Style.

The winning team will win cash in the region of $15-$25k as well as the opportunity to have their creation launched by the CFDA.

Digital snippets: Bodyform, Chanel, Gap, Uniqlo, Thomas Pink, Hermès, Facebook

Some more great stories from around the web surrounding all things fashion and digital over the past week:

 

• Bodyform responds to viral Facebook rant with ‘The Truth’ video (as above) [HuffingtonPost.co.uk]

• Brad Pitt’s Chanel No 5 ad: the smell of disaster [The Guardian]

• Gap tests Whispering Window ‘invisible audio’ displays [BrandChannel]

• Uniqlo model draws as much on Intel and Toyota as Gap [Wired]

• Thomas Pink launches instant mobile check out app [The Drum]

• Hermès gets tech-y with computer-inspired ties [Styleite]

• Facebook tests new ‘want’ feature for retailers [FT]