“When we talk about fashion technologies we talk about..
Ehm..
Ah! Of course! Yes..!
We talk about technologies in fashion! So easy, sometimes I don’t know why I get confused when, in the end, the name already explains everything!
We can literally say that the topic is already done, we all know that fashion uses technologies no more, no less than all of the other realities on this planet; at the end, this world is living a huge digitalization wave, like a tsunami, so everything is contaminated by the future!
So..What are we going to talk about now, that our main topic is complete?!
Why that face? You look confused.. Ok, let’s not take for granted everything and let me dig into this topic that everyone knows!”
This is, more or less, with a little bit of personal touch, how it went the first time I discussed fashion technology with a friend.
If you think about the two words, the mixture looks the same as a salty-sweet drink.
Fashion that should represent elements like protection, personality, self-expression, fantasy but also waves of interest, waste, discrimination is almost the opposite of technology, it is something open, that exposes you, it is something that has nothing personal and it is normally something that you accept or not in your life without changing its parts; technology is something for sure that does not discriminate anyone (because for example, a smartphone is the same for everyone who owns it, the same with a refrigerator, a tv or an app, a system to do something or a program used to do something else) and overtime is less and less polluting, it is more and more eco-friendly.
Yes, two different flavors, two different products but when you have a small place for your things, most of the time they mix between each other even when you don’t want them to!
This in a way has happened to fashion, slowly, along the decades, it mixed with this, a completely different entity, the technology!
Honestly, we could create a looooooooong discussion about the techno-word because if you think that primitive people used to wear animals fur and one day, someone with the grandgrandgrandgrandfather/mother of the needle and a string started to make garments, or started to shape those furs to be better over the people’s bodies, well even that needle was technology!
We will skip, with the same emphasis of when you heard a commercial on YouTube, till the beginning of this millennial where the machines/programs/apps were/are really powerful, really “updated”, modern, fast and as Italian people, in a jokingly way, say, almost able to make you also the coffee (meaning they can do everything)!
In this phase of fashion, the bond with technology is really intense: technologies make fashion easier, faster, and simpler for everyone.
From the production side, drawing on a computer the new garment can easily give the input to machines to make, instead of drawing it on a piece of paper and hardly doing it.
It is simpler for the selections of the colors, of the shapes, prototypes are visible on screens and easily changeable when back in the past everything was made differently, there were more complicated and time talking, more slow and expensive.
Technologies just don’t help the production, they help the development in all the spheres:
Selling:
On the websites, nowadays people sell everything even if the customer does not have the product in their hands; you can not have a physical shop and be able to sell; you can sell things that, at the moment someone buys, are not existing yet and make them right after.
Marketing and Communication:
Using social networks for example is easier to reach people, new people, people from all over the world, at any time at any day.
Clients/Customers:
For everyone, it is easier to learn about products, about the brands about the visions and missions but as well about the generations, the places, the trends in any regions or groups of people.
Those ones are just simple examples of how technology has entered and mixed perfectly with the fashion industry.
Can we say that fashion should be called techno-fashion nowadays? Maybe.
Can we say that technology has been fundamental for fashion to survive? No.
Can we say that technology will change the future of fashion moving it 100 years behind with the modern possibilities?
Well, this is a good question and a good bet.
Some people will say no, others will not have any idea, but I’m going to show you why it could be possible, and how could be/evolve our future!
LIST OF FASHION TECHNOLOGIES:
FASHION TECHNOLOGY BRAND: MYNTRA
Let’s start to talk about how fashion technology has shaped the faces of brands.
Thanks to the internet who has been a sort of fertile ground for any human being, a lot of people have realized how, instead of investing in a first local shop which could cost a considerable amount of money, investing in a digital one: faster to have, easier to take care of, cheaper to maintain but also able to be seen and visited by people from all over the world!
One interesting example is Myntra, the largest online fashion store in India!
The project was created at the end of the first decade of the new millennium, born in 2007 selling personalized gift items like mugs, t-shirts, and other things.
After less than five years, Myntra, one of the most famous fashion technology brands started to sell instead of personalized items, fashion, and lifestyle products. This change brought the company to expand their business acquiring more brands possible; almost four hundred are the ones that at this moment Mantra is selling the products of, Indian and International ones.
Changing products is something that could scare a shop owner because he could feel to lose the business but in case it could be digital, it could even be something that could increase the number of clients! A “small” company created to simply personalize objects becoming an Indian “institution” is not so crazy at the end, especially now, especially if you work hard, especially if you own skills and techniques of fashion technologies!
To obtain even more interest and lights from the audience in 2019, the company decided to create a digital reality show called Myntra fashion superstar.
The idea was to create a short series, in this case, they produced eight episodes, where ten contenders were competing to become a new Indian fashion influencer.
The show was a real success in part for the idea in itself in part thanks to the people who participated/were involved like the famous diva of Bollywood, Sonakshi Sinha.
FASHION TECHNOLOGY COMPANIES: AMAZON
When we talk about fashion technologies that use fashion technologies, Amazon is for sure one of the most famous ones!
The company with almost 30 years of life is one, along with Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft, of the five information technology industries in USA. The company mostly focuses on e-commerce but also in digital streaming with the platform Amazon Prime Video and a smaller part in development of artificial intelligence.
In less than thirty years Amazon has been able to develop from a small company in Seattle to became a real influential and cultural force, globalizing this planet, giving and creating possibilities day after day.
If we think about the number of storages that the company owns, probably we imagine the number of products inside; stores literally with a huge overproduction inside wherein a lot of cases several articles were not able to be sold.
Not selling for a company like this one has the same value of creating a huge quantity of waste.
Between all the ideas they had, since this year they started Made for you, a special section of the website where, adding two photos of you, and datas about your body shape, a software is able to calculate the perfect garments/shapes for your body.
You can select the colors, if you want the garment more loose or more fitted and few other details, in a way like if you would go to a tailor.
For now, they started with t-shirts, with the idea to develop along the year also denim jeans, regular shirts, and few accessories. All the products designed have to be genderless.
This is their view will create less storage because the products will be created after the sale and with less storage, there will be less waste.
FASHION TECHNOLOGY COMPANIES: DOMESTIKA
Sometimes companies are born to sell products, like in the case we previously presented of Amazon, other times they are born to sell opportunities, this is the case of Domestika.
The company started 15 years ago as a social media platform, a group of creative people needed a space to share their projects, talk about them and promote themselves.
Even if normally things change, this aspect has been kept because even nowadays you can still upload your projects, your portfolio and follow other users, interacting with them.
Connecting yourself in Domestika allows you not just to read and watch other people’s ideas but also to find jobs, find work partners and collaborators.
The company has other interesting aspects like the possibility to attend digital courses divided by software, areas, or categories.
They propose several adobe classes like photoshop, illustrator, lightroom, or InDesign; you can attend classes of illustration, digital illustration, photography, graphic design, 3D; but you can also look for something even less digital like architecture and interior design, graphic and craftsmanship.
Domestika is not just a company, just a lab, a social network, a school, or a friends meeting, it is an entity where, due to the different technologies, people have been able to develop together, so in a way help each other, to create possibilities and to work together to create a better life.
FASHION TECHNOLOGY STARTUPS: LOOKSTYLER
Last but not least of the importance we’re going to talk about another important field for fashion technology: the start-up one.
LookStyler: the perfect mix for globalized millennials (and younger)!
Imagine you are in a city you don’t know well for an important job interview and you have no idea what to wear. Imagine you have to go to an event and you don’t have time to think about your makeup or nice accessories to use.
What would you do?
Here is born the idea of LookStyler, a global styling platform that links professionals to customers. Fashion stylists, fashion designers, agencies, hotels but also experts in fashion, luxury, events, all of these people are able to be booked for any need.
For some people, this could be a crazy idea but for others it is something revolutionary, helping them gaining time, experience, self-confidence, and peace.
With this globalized and fast planet, having more peace, thinking less about problems is also a form of healthiness and nothing is more precious than feeling good!
These examples of fashion technologies linked with startups are really good to understand. There are a lot of functionalities provided by the different kind of technologies, but in fashion, more than in other fields most of them are good, really good for this world, for the different environments but also for our lives.
Thanks to them, we all gain something, something that we could have before.. This could be time, this could be connections, this could be a less quantity of pollution or waste but for sure it is something that is given by these fashion technologies.
Maybe it is true, maybe it is not, but for sure it is funny to see elements where the technology is going in a more and more eco-friendly direction!
VIRTUAL INFLUENCERS
When we talk about fashion technologies, we always want to face the future!
This year for the first time fashion brands started to use on the pages of their social networks virtual influences as fashion technology elements!
Miquela Sousa has been the first existing virtual influencer, she was created by Joerg Zuber. In few weeks she has become a real V.I.P. with over 300.000 followers on social networks.
She made partnership with several brands like Swarovski or Calvin Klein.
BIODEGRADABLE GLITTER
It seems shocking but after almost a century one of the most pollutant product on this planet has become…compostable and biodegradable!!!
BioGlitz, the company that produces it found a new formula made by the extract of a plant, a plant that could be considered magic for all the uses you can have with, the eucalyptus!
When we talk about fashion technology startup this is a really good example because due to its formula, finally, this product will be no longer environmentally damaging due to its microplastics!
LEATHER FROM APPLES
Remaining in the field of sustainable fashion, thinking about new ways to take care of the environment and another project, made by a fashion technology company will not change this planet but it could give to him a lighter bigger breath!
Frumat, a company that took inspiration from Apple, ended up using apple pectin to create a new material used to create shoes.
This material is going to be a sort of vegan leather, peculiar, eco-friendly, and unique in this sector to the point it’s almost luxurious!
But this is not just the only interesting part, they reduced the use of toxic chemicals used in the different phases to work the leather. They realized that to color and tan the material the can use other products more natural.
VIRTUAL GARMENTS
What could we add more.. let’s imagines what else a fashion technology company could create..
Ok let’s try to combine, robots, sustainability, digitalization, eco garments maybe while you’re eating an apple with a profile of millions of followers on social networks.. Is it a dream? Or not?
I don’t know if you knew about this fashion technology startup, Superpersonal.
If you didn’t check about it because this is something incredible as unique! They created an app able to allow the buyers to try on a lot of different kinds of garments in a digital/virtual way.
As soon as you will insert your information the software will calculate everything and will be able to make you feel like you would have had on you that garment.
This could be a new step in the buying world, trying outfits before could help to waste more? Could help to sell better? Could involve people buying even digital garments to show on their social profiles?
Those are questions that no one has already found an answer but for the rest, with few clicks, you can have an idea!
Which of these fashion technologies did you already know about? Tell us in the comments below!
