Fashion and technology have been heading for a crossroads for the past few years but now the expected is becoming a reality. With Google creating glasses and Samsung creating wearable devices it appears that fashion and technology are finally beginning to merge, but what will come next?
With Apple hiring three fashion CEO’s, questions have been raised as to what will come out of brand that has thus far only produced personal electronic devices. In July of this year Paul Deneve, former CEO of Yves Saint Laurent made his move to Apple, followed in September and October by Ben Shaffer, Design Director of Nike, and Angela Ahrendts, former CEO of Burberry, respectively. The joining of these fashion names with such a technologically forward company, who has been standing at the forefront of technology for a while, has caused widespread speculation of fashionable phones and stylish laptops and even fashion and technology merging in ways we couldn’t imagine, possibly making fashion as interactive as the smart phone in everyone’s pocket.
We have already seen the fashion industry morph from a somewhat isolated industry to one of the most interactive around. Fashion shows are no longer only for the eyes of the front row but are becoming readily available to watch live online. Products are no longer confined to the four walls of a store but instead are only a click away from your doorstep. In fact fashion itself and trends are no longer defined by the industry for the public but are now sometimes defined by the public for the industry. Katie Smith, a retail analyst at Editd, a trend prediction company told the Guardian “the clothes seen off the runway during fashion weeks have become just as influential as the designer looks.”
Jamie Cooke the ex marketing chief of Topshop said that fashion is “too scared” to completely mix with technology. He said, “Fashion was quite slow to pick up on technology, particularly in luxury.” But that doesn’t mean that fashion has completely failed to connect with it.
In October the worlds first Digital fashion week was held in Singapore. This was in collaboration with the British High Commission Singapore and the British Council suggesting that we are set to see even further developments in terms of technology and fashion in Britain. The British Fashion Council’s CEO Caroline Rush told the Telegraph, “it’s about reaching out to broader audiences, showcasing digitally is a fantastic opportunity for our designers to reach global audiences without obviously having to have those big advertising budgets.” The aim to raise awareness and reach a broader range of people will always ultimately be to achieve increased sales.
Being the first fashion week of its kind this revolutionary show was labelled Fashion Without Boundaries and will be hosted again in 2014 in Bangkok and Shanghai. Naomi Campbell was one of a few successful models that walked on the catwalk during the fashion week and was said to be strengthening the ties between the fashion and technology industries. Digital Fashion Week was a ‘shoppable live streaming fashion week’ where viewers were able to watch live online and viewers were ‘also able to make instant purchase off the live runway with a delivery period of 4 to 8 weeks’.
With technology rapidly developing it will be interesting to see if fashion is able to keep up; it appears that the industry is beginning to immerse itself with technology regardless of the initial scepticism surrounding it. it seems that we are likely to be seeing many more fashion and technology collaborations in the future.
Image: http://hypebeast.com/2013/2/the-rise-of-fashionable-technology
