Technology & Creativity Cover Photo: Rag&Bone Preview SS 2021 Teaser Film/ Reproduction
Technology is closely linked to creativity. It comes from 2 greek words, one means a set of skills, and knowledge that will help you to create something, and logos which means words. The implementation of technology has therefore enhanced creativity over the year.
During the first industrial revolution, sewing machines were introduced, leading to an expansion of the fashion industry. It was the biggest revolution in terms of change until the adoption of 3D.
Fashion has been evolving and changing around technology, from an industrial point of view as well as from a creative point of view.
In fact, the digitalization era introduced designers to develop new marketing strategies on social media as well as a new way of showing collections. Trends and styles changed, hence, showing a piece of clothing could be harder in a simple fashion show, bigger and more complex production is therefore needed. Here are some fashion shows that demonstrate this improvement.
Digitalization has hit the fashion industry not only at the design level but also pushed fashion to be represented in different ways, especially during fashion shows.
This article will demonstrate how technology has changed the creativity of fashion shows.
Technology & Creativity: What Are Brands Doing Out there
Burberry Opening in Beijing, 2014
Following the awful weather at the Milan and Paris fashion week, the Beijing show was hosted by Christopher Bailey, creative director at Burberry, in a special way. He had the idea to mix both models as well as holograms in order to be prepared for the potential bad weather they have had during the fashion week month.
As Burberry was opening a new store in Beijing, they wanted to mark the spirits. They invited Keane to perform during the show and used something never used before. They incorporated holograms into their fashion show. Musion Eyeliner created the holograms for Burberry.
For more details about this fashion show, click here.
Dolce & Gabanna fashion show, Fall 2018
The brand created a mitigated feeling within the viewers. The show started very late since everyone was asked to put their phone on airplane mode. It took so much time that Anna Wintour almost went home. In the end, it was worth it, before the show started, bags were brought on the runway by drones. It was never done before the move that the show has made a place for itself in the memories. It happened the same in Saudi Arabia, drones flew on the runway carrying dresses. However, it was critized. Women protested against this show, justifying their anger at a controversial place for women in society as if they were not capable enough to march down the runway. Although the drones replaced women on this runway, why if drones replaced humans in general?
Jon Rafman’s runway for Balenciaga, Summer 2019
Jon Rafman staged the Balenciaga fashion show and created an unexpected environment. The catwalk was surrounded by screens and the viewers were placed inside the tunnel. He wanted to create a feeling of panic, and emotions in the public by using hard colors reminding them of the error screensaver, apocalyptic backgrounds…
Jon expressed colors of a chaotic and emotional new world with new deep connections with technology. LED panels were used everywhere. His idea fitted perfectly with crazy and futuristic Balenciaga designs. Jon demonstrated again the link between fashion and technology developing closely.
Balanciaga Afterworld video games, Fall 2021
Cedric Charbit wants Balenciaga to be timeless. He compared a fashion show to video games pointing to backgrounds, music, and garments. His idea for this concept came following the pandemic. The covid-19 crisis had an impact on the next generation and therefore on the next consumers. Video games are an integral part of our environment and designers try to adapt to them in order not to miss the future trend. A mom has told the story of his son who was only interested in buying clothes for his skins on his virtual games. She said his wardrobe was inexistent since he was only playing video games inside. This generational shift could announce the next trend to come. Fashion in video games is to be the biggest thing than we might think.
Cedric created a collection only digital that could fit the future market. He followed his video games inspiration and he ended up with this Afterworld collection.
Gary James McQueen’s first digital show 2021
Gary James McQueen understood the trends as clearly as Cedric Charbit. Digital fashion will be a 50 billion pound market only taking into consideration gamers. Designers are therefore moving digital selling on the metaverse, for photos or games. He conceived a fully digital collection named Guiding Light and a digital fashion show. What triggered him was that creating a digital display would let him discover a new way of designing, especially by using fabrics that would not even exist in real life. “It’s so much more convenient, and easier, to create a digital space of your own desires.” (Gary. J McQueen, 2021). He also mentioned the fact that you have a 360-degree view of the show, which is not as quite what you could have seen on a real runway.
To create this fashion show, he used Marvelous Designer to create the garments and the perspective, then Substance Painter to add details and try to make it more realistic, followed by Unreal Engine to elaborate the clothes movements and Moyosa 3D to build the background. Gary McQueen, as an artistic director finished by choosing the models by creating them on ZBrush and MetaHuman. The collection can be purchased on DressX.
Rag&Bone powered by Microsoft technology, Spring 2021
Rag&Bone was looking for a new vision to add to their catwalk. Marcus Wainwright, designer of the brand did want to make a fashion with the only condition that it had to be unique. He found a strong connection between fashion and technology and decided to exploit it, he ended up using Microsoft technology. The catwalk, rather original, was round. In the center, an orchestra bordered by curious screens
While models were walking A robot embedded with a Sensor SDK using the Azur Kinect DK and the Body Tracking SDK, caught the walk, the attitude, and the clothes in a dimension it would have never been expected to catch a runway. The technology then transforms everything into 3D pointillist models using cloud-point data.
The Takeaways
Technology is pushing the public to become a protagonist. The boundaries of the catwalk are moving and expanding, getting the environment to act as the main actor. The relationship can be scary and many are against it.
This mix could improve the waste within the industry, with fewer fabrics used during shows as well as during the process of designing. You are now able to make mistakes without increasing your costs. Without models as well we could think of some positive impact, no cost for their wages, no travel cost as well as no carbon emission. However, do we really want to push back humans behind the digital and technological wall? Fashion can evolve but its essence would not be the same digitally.
Some argue the energy spent to create a digital and environment-friendly world could be spent to actually save the environment in real life rather than hiding behind a screen.
