With the recent advancement in technology, the fashion industry is also adapting fast to many contemporary trends. As the famous French fashion designer Coco Chanel once said, “fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.”
Today, apart from wearing the trendiest clothes, there are also tech accessories in the form of our smartphone, tablets, smartwatches, and even the highly-talked about smart glasses from Google. In this post, we want to help you turn into a fashion goddess this coming winter season with the top tech ideas you can include in your wardrobe.
1. 3D Printing is IN this season
We saw Dita Von Teese last year (March 2013) sporting her Bitonti and Schmidt black 3D printed handmade dress, which is made up of 2,500 intersecting joint. But, apart from dresses, other 3D printed fashionable items were introduced recently such as accessories. Forbes' Rachel Hennessey introduced in her article ‘3D Printing Hits The Fashion World’ about Catherine Wales’ Project DNA collection, which includes apparel, accessories, and even 3D printed masks made up of printed white nylon.
With the help of modern technology, 3D printing is no longer exclusive to the experienced fashion designers. Hennessey wrote that home printing devices such as Staples’ 3D printer (Cube) can help a fashionista like you to make your own 3D printed accessories such as bracelets and phone cases in only 30 minutes. However, the printer is costly at $1,300, but worth a try.
2. Mobile shoes, anyone?
If you’re tired of sporting your smartphone or tablet, take your mobile tech fashion up a notch by wearing a vintage pair of shoes with a handset. In an attempt to recycle the growing number of old phones in the United Kingdom, O2 Recycle came up with the “Walkie Talkies” campaign. The company teamed up with shoe designer Sean Miles to make Christian Louboutin stiletto, a Nike Air trainer pair, a men’s brougue, and a Hunter Wellies rain boots contain old but working LG and Nokia handsets.
Similar to James Bond’s pair of phone shoes, the handsets (screen, keypad, and speaker) are embedded into the sole of each shoe with a water-proof cover to ensure its safety. Apart from shoes, O2 also featured handbag with embedded phones and the gloves with basic mobile functionality on their collection.
3. Biometric shirt from RL
Aside from mobile phones that can get your heart rate and fingerprint, there’s a new fashionable item in town that various technology- and fashion-related websites are buzzing about – introducing Ralph Lauren’s very own biometric shirt. Formerly launched during the US Open Tennis Championships this year, the smart shirt has the ability to calculate various physical aspects (heart rate, stress, steps, breathing level, and calories burned) and send the records to your smartphone or tablet. Tech Times reported that the RL shirt comes with “no plugs and no wires.” The technology employed on the nylon material is a group of bio-sensing silver fibers attached to a black box that transmits data to your devices. The box will need to be removed and recharge before washing the shirt.
Currently, the shirt is not yet on general sale but is expected to be out real soon, and the luxury fashion brand has not yet disclosed the price on this apparel.
Technology will never seize to exist – and as it continues to grow in various forms -- we should see the fashion world reshaping its self and moving forward. There are other ways on how you can keep yourself techie yet still fashionable with the help of various mobile applications, but we hope this list has helped you in deciding which look to carry next season. What techie fashionista items are you watching for next year?
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