Tag: Fashion

On Trend: The Convergence of Tech and Fashion

Posted on by Richard Yao

The flirtation between tech and fashion has long been on our radar, and with the introduction of the Apple Watch earlier this week, the convergence of wearable tech and designer fashion has officially become a full-blown affair.

The trend started because both industries need each other. For tech companies, collaborating with the fashion industry helps to push out the new products with that extra sheen. This is especially true for the wearables, frequently dubbed “ugly” and “un-wearable” for their often bulky and unpolished designs. And the tech industry is realizing that making their wearables “fashionable” is a pre-requisite for mass adoption. For instance, Fitbit gave its fitness tracker a makeover by teaming up with Tory Burch, while Samsung is collaborating with Swarovski to offer bedazzled straps for its new Gear S.

On the other hand, many fashion brands are embracing technology in order to stay ahead. For the younger generations, technology is quickly replacing fashion, as many members of Gen Y and Z cite the newest handset as a higher purchase priority than the fashion fad of the season. In order to keep fashion “in fashion”, the industry is more than happy to incorporate the newest tech into the new looks. The “smart” accessories are being prominently featured on the runways of New York Fashion Week. And earlier last month, Ralph Lauren has also embraced new technology and developed its first item of smart sportswear.

Now with Apple unveiling their first wearable product, this trend is going stronger than ever. The Cupertino company geared up for its Apple Watch reveal by first poaching several executives from luxury fashion brands, and inviting key fashion influencers to the launch event. And it worked, receiving mostly positive reactions from the fashion world for its polished design, multitude of styles, and plenty of customization options. In the foreseeable future, this trend will most certainly continue, as such integration helps normalizing the otherwise “geeky” new tech products, especially the wearables, in a way that is mutually beneficial for both industries.

Tech Is Replacing Fashion For Gen Z

Posted on by Lab Team

For today’s teenagers, fashion might have gone out of vogue. In fact, technology is quickly becoming more of a status symbol than fashion. As noted in a recent New York Times report on the back-to-school shopping, many Gen Z members cite the newest handset as a higher priority than the fashion fad of the season. As tech accessories continue to rise among the younger generations, it is up to brands on both sides to keep up with the trend.

Ralph Lauren Developed A Smart Shirt For Athletes

Posted on by Lab Team

With the help of Canadian tech firm Omsignal, Ralph Lauren has developed its first item of smart sportswear. Dubbed the “Polo Tech” shirt, it has built-in sensors that track the wearer’s heart rate and movement, with collected data synced with an iOS app. This is not the first time that wearable tech has teamed up with the fashion industry to normalize its still-novel products. And even though this shirt is currently in the prototype stage, it indicates a future where wearable tech is further integrated into sports and other realms of daily life.

Fitbit Gets A Fashion Makeover by Tory Burch

Posted on by Lab Team

The flirtation between tech and fashion continues as Tory Burch introduces a new accessory collection, which includes a pendant, a bracelet, and a pair of silicone bands, all designed to help you wear your Fitbit Flex with style. Now all the techy fashionistas and fashionable techies can finally wear a fitness tracker to a nightclub without being constantly asked about it. Applying fashion to elevate and normalize new tech devices has always been Apple’s motto, which they are certainly following for the much-rumored iWatch. It is good to see the wearable tech companies catching on as well.

Google Glass App Glashion Changes Shopping Behaviors

Posted on by Lab Team

Google Glass and the AR movement at large have created enormous opportunities to change behaviors.  A new Glass app, Glashion, does just this, allowing users to purchase fashion items they see on the fly.  The app captures a photo of the product and uses the ShopStyle API to find similar items, which can then be purchased directly in the app.  The app can also direct the user to nearby stores carrying the item.  Founder Billy Mauro explains that Glashion’s goal is to demonstrate how Glass can bridge online and offline shopping behaviors, and should Glass take off, this kind of behavior could become increasingly common.

Rebecca Minkoff Debuts Collection On Snapchat

Posted on by Lab Team

Snapchat, having been used for a few different brand campaigns, finds a new partner in Rebecca Minkoff. For Minkoff’s NY Fashion Week show at Lincoln Center on Friday Afternoon, snapchat will be used to debut five to ten new looks minutes before they hit the runway. Minkoff is using Twitter to acquire Snapchat friends to individually send pictures out one by one to its friends on the photo sharing app. The fashion company isn’t hoping to give its users a proper preview – as 10 seconds isnt’ exactly long enough to get a good look at any one piece – but is rather hoping to make use of the novelty factor of the medium, much like Taco Bell and 16 Handles. Whether this is another successful branding campaign remains to be seen, but what’s clear is that the photo sharing application is proving more versatile than initially imagined. 

Monogram Launches Shoppable Magazine Platform

Posted on by Lab Team

Monogram, a fashion commerce startup, launched an iPad app last fall that attempted to be a mobile, shoppable magazine. It didn’t catch on, and the team went back to square one. The team decided to leverage the huge existing world of fashion bloggers to help create and share content through its platform. The new Monogram provides a full web editing suite, which allows bloggers to share their favorite fashions and build full ‘magazines’ of their favorite content, all of which is shoppable. For bloggers, the system effectively allows consumers to purchase items through their pages, and the platform provides an integrated search function that scours the web for the products bloggers want to share. For viewers, the new Monogram easily enables readability and sharing functions for blog posts. It’s designed as a web app with responsive design, and it can also be used as an app on devices. 

Vine Steps Out At Fashion Week

Posted on by Lab Team

Vine is making a big impact at New York Fashion Week. Reporters, attendees, and socialites are all taking to the app and exploring new ways to share and report back on their experiences at the events. Though Instagram was universally embraced last year, Vine is currently far and away the in-vogue app of choice this season. The functionality of the app makes it very well suited to reporting on the proceedings: several media editors have been using the app to take and edit videos of multiple looks over the looped segment, giving viewers a unique perspective on the clothes in moving, living color. It provides viewers with a better conception of the clothes than Instagram, which obviously doesn’t capture movement. At the same time, using Instagram would require more time to edit multiple photographs of different models and looks, as opposed to Vine which can point and shoot a loop of many models simultaneously. 

Beyond reporters, designers and retailers are utilizing the app to provide viewers with privileged views into the backstage. Some examples include designers showing video of modeling auditions to allow viewers to help pick the models, or showing the stages and rehearsals in progress. In all, it will be interesting to see how the fallout from this new-found use of the app shapes its future as a journalistic and social medium.