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Apple TV Exclusive ‘Made 2 Measure’ Fashion Network Launches

October 20, 2015

Made 2 Measure Apple TV WME/IMG Menu

Early in September word broke that Apple was working with WME/IMG to launch an exclusive fashion oriented network on the Apple TV. The style-focused network is called Made 2 Measure (M2M) and finally went live today, a week before the launch of the new Apple TV. Good news though for owners of Apple’s previous generation over-the-top box, M2M is not exclusive to the new device; fire up your Apple TV and the new network should be there waiting for you (along with new additions NBC and CBS).

As we previously reported, Made 2 Measure features a mix of new content and licensed. There are currently 37 designers represented; you can view 2 to 3 minute cut-downs of 2015 AW and 2016 SS runway shows sorted either by designer or by the city where they were shown. There are also a handful of interviews with designers, such as a 7 minute segment where Karlie Kloss interviews Diane von Furstenberg. On the series side, there are a few new shows, such as In And Out Of Fashion With Lauren Brown and Tea At The Beatrice With Glenn O’Brien. Similar to the runway shows, most of the original content is only a few minutes long with the exception being Glenn O’Brien’s show, which seems to clock in around 20 minutes per episode. Finally, there is a selection of licensed fashion-related documentaries available to watch.

For day 1 of a new network, there is a surprisingly decent amount of content waiting to be explored. Offering both new and licensed material was a smart way to boost the size of Made 2 Measure’s catalog. Our biggest complaint in the limited time we have had with M2M is that most of the original content is so short. At this point there is little new that couldn’t have existed as a YouTube clip. Additionally, we hope that the network posts longer form versions of the runway shows; reducing a show to 2 minutes makes it feel overly compressed. All in all though we walked away very impressed. Made to Measure represents a daring concept of a content provider that is neither ad nor subscription supported. We will be curious to see how invested WME/IMG is moving forward to creating new content or if they let it just wilt away. Also, it will also be interesting to see how the company utilizes the network for Spring’s 2016 AW fashion weeks.

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by Doug Parker
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Fashion

2016 Met Ball Theme Announced: Fashion & Technology

October 14, 2015

Met Ball 2016 Anna Wintour Jony Ive Apple Taylor Swift Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology

One of the the biggest fashion events in the world is the annual Met Ball. Every year the gala at The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a different theme, related to the Costume Institute exhibit at the museum. Attendees scramble for months leading up to the event to make sure they wear something that uniquely, and glamorously, embraces the theme. The theme for the 2016 Met Ball was just announced and we couldn’t be more excited: Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology. And in an interesting twist, Apple’s Chief Design Officer, Jony Ive, will chair the event along with Taylor Swift, Idris Elba, Anna Wintour, Nicolas Ghesquière, Karl Lagerfeld, and Miuccia Prada.

The Costume Institute and Met Ball embracing the concept of fashion and technology suggests we are approaching a tipping point of the two’s relationship; we are moving closer to a world where fashion and tech are deeply intertwined. While much of the exhibit will look at modern manufacturing techniques and how they are influencing fashions at all price points, the inclusion of Jony Ive also indicates a focus on wearable technology. Given the daringness of most outfits worn to the gala, we cannot wait to see how guests push the idea of fashion tech. While we have seen a few stunning outfits incorporating everything from reactive fabrics to LEDs, these have been one-offs or something shown at tiny fashion events. The Met Ball has the potential to be the real coming out party for fashion tech.

If your invite to the Met Ball on May 2nd, gets lost in the mail (ours usually does), you will be able to check out the Costume Institute’s exhibit at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It will consist of over 100 looks which, according to Vogue, “will focus on the dichotomy between handmade haute couture and machine-made fashion.” Andrew Bolton, curator of the Costume Institute, elaborates, “Traditionally, the distinction between the haute couture and prêt-à-porter was based on the handmade and the machine-made. But recently this distinction has become increasingly blurred as both disciplines have embraced the practices and techniques of the other.” Traditional techniques such as embroidery, pleating, and lacework will be shown along side laser cutting, thermo shaping, and circular knitting. There will also be several “in-process” workshops showcasing cutting edge technologies such as 3D printing.

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by Doug Parker
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Like A Glove LikeAGlove Leggings Gift Guide 2015 Best Fashion Tech
Fashion

These Smart Leggings Size You For Perfect Fitting Jeans

October 9, 2015

Like A Glove Leggings LikeAGlove

The current state of online clothes shopping is frustrating. With all the slight variations of fit and shaping, it necessitates you to order at least 2 sizes and hope that maybe one of them might work. Last year we reported on a startup, named LikeAGlove, developing smart garments that could take your measurements and relay the information to an app, which in turn would find you perfect fitting clothes. The company had even already developed a database of clothing for different fits. Well, it seem LikeAGlove is now ready to ship their first product – smart leggings. Simply wear the leggings while standing still for a few seconds and the garment measures your waist, thighs, high and low hips, and inseam. The information is communicated instantly to a companion app, which then displays a selection of jeans that will best fit your body type. As you select a pair of jeans, the app will also display how well it matches your various measurements. The leggings are available now for preorder and cost $40 (reduced from the regular price of <gasp> $100); they will ship Q1 2016.

If you have ever tried to order clothes online, you know how amazing this concept is! We are curious about the pricing though; $100 is a lot. You can pay a lot of return shipping fees before you break even, especially since most people don’t buy more than a couple of nice pairs of jeans a year. It would have been amazing if LikeAGlove could have positioned their product as a marketing vehicle for various clothing labels and collected revenue from offering their garments in the app.

We are excited to see that LikeAGlove has been able to move forward to the point of launching their product. We can’t to get our hands on it, test it out, and see how much depth their is to their online database of jeans. LikeAGlove had originally demoed a top designed to help you find a perfect dress; it was long enough to collect hip and waist information. While leggings make a lot of sense as an initial product, we hope that the company also releases the top. Head past the break to see how the smart leggings work:  

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by Doug Parker
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Fashion

3D Printed Top That Reacts To People’s Gaze

October 2, 2015

Caress The Gaze 3D Printed Top Camera

Architect and designer Behnaz Farahi has posted about a new wearable project she has been working on entitled “Caress The Gaze.” Through a partnership with Autodesk and Pier 9, Behnaz has designed a garment that reacts to people’s gazes. A hidden camera in the clothing monitors the direction of where people are looking. If someone is staring too closely (in this case) at the your bosom, the clothing reacts. 3D Printed spikes covering the outside, almost like a porcupine, move, shift, and realign in way that mimics an animal when threatened. The way the spikes react is startlingly lifelike and almost creepy.

While items such as “Caress The Gaze” are little more than design exercises, they pave the path for the future of fashion tech. By exploring concepts and proving feasibility, work of designers such as Behnaz might eventually lead to something you see walking the runway. Head past the break to see the garment in motion.  

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by Doug Parker
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Fashion, Jewelry

Henry Holland Distributes Wearable Tech At Runway Show

September 23, 2015

Henry Holland NFC Ring London Fashion Week SS16

When British fashion designer Henry Holland showed off his Spring / Summer 2016 looks this weekend at London Fashion Week, the show became an interactive experience for a few lucky VIPs. The designer crafted and distributed 10 NFC enabled rings. The rings were handmade to look like insects, matching the “Urban Safari” theme of collection and were preloaded with £500. Three of the models walked the runway with a special leaf-shaped brooch, which was a NFC receiver. After the show, the VIPs could walk up to one of the 3 different looks, hold their ring next to the model’s brooch, and purchase the look. They were then able to walk out the door with their purchase.

According to an interview with The Telegraph, Holland stated, “A really big thing for me was making the tech invisible, especially if I’m incorporating it into something as important as my show. From my point of view it was really about creating two items – the ring and the brooch – that were really desirable pieces that people would want to wear themselves, but just happened to have those capabilities.”

This year, increasing customer engagement at Fashion Week events has become a predominate theme. Social media is being used more and more as a tool by designers to engage a global audience, granting them instant access to see the newest looks. Holland has been pushing things even further; he also wants to allow people to immediately own the new looks instead of having to wait 6 months. While only 10 people had this ability during his SS16 show, at House Of Holland’s menswear show last spring, the entire collection was made available for purchase immediately. Earlier this year we posed the question of where Fashion Week events were headed – pushing towards consumer or towards trade. As New York and London Fashion Weeks wrap, it seems the momentum is clearly towards a consumer focus.

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by Doug Parker
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Fashion

Google’s Schmidt Believes Computers Can Predict Cool

September 18, 2015

Alphabet Google Eric Schmidt AI Fashion Music

Last weekend, Google’s Eric Schmidt wrote an op-ed piece for the BBC. The article focuses on his feeling that we are right at the beginning of an amazing future that is only possible through AI (artificial intelligence). One of the most widely reported parts of the op-ed is him slamming Apple Music as being elitist because the music is human curated. Schmidt prefers a “smart system” learning from the community as a whole (read: AI) because it allows “everyone to discover the next big star through our own collective tastes and not through the individual preferences of a select few.” While on paper it makes some sense, music doesn’t work like that. Pandora is perfectly pleasant, but wouldn’t you rather be listening to a mix tape tape created just for you? That’s because a human touch is needed to play just the right songs at just the right time. Musicians have long criticized A&R guys for being are gatekeepers, but the truth is there is an art and a feel to artist development that cannot be replaced with science, numbers, and computers. Using computers to shape tastes and trends does not allow for abnormalities (something radically different) and emphasizes a culture of unified tastes.

A few days ago Schmidt sat down with WWD and extended his thoughts on AI to also cover fashion. It is his belief that computers will be used to allow designers to decide what is “cool” and what is not. According to Schmidt, “There’s a science around cool.” Modeling how people migrate towards “cool,” he asserts that AI will be able “to take a picture of a dress and tell a brand whether it was going to be cool or not.” Even more so than his statements on music, it is tough to agree with Schmidt.  

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by Doug Parker
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Fashion

Burberry Debuting London Fashion Week Looks On Snapchat

September 18, 2015

Burberry Snapchat London Fashion Week SS2016

With New York Fashion Week closing out last night, the fashion world is turning its attention to next week’s London Fashion Week. Burberry, arguably one of the UK’s most iconic brands, has announced it is going to give the public an unique way to interact with the new Spring/Summer 2016 collection. In a first-of-its-kind move (we have had a lot of those recently), Burberry will showcase their new looks via Snapchat a day before the runway show. The styles will launch on Sunday at 7pm GMT and will disappear 24 hours later, as the company’s Kensington Garden fashion show starts. During the show, Burberry will also use the app to provide a glimpse behind the scenes. If you just can’t wait, the company’s Snapchat channel is already live (it launched in April of this year) and showing off things such as invitations and guest lists.

Burberry’s Snapchat announcement comes only a few days after we reported that the company had launched the first branded Apple Music channel. Burberry has always embraced technology. They were among the first major designers to embrace both Twitter and Instagram (live tweeting their SS2012 show), utilize touch screen displays in their stores, explore using RFIDs to provide a richer customer experience, and offer ‘Buy Now’ functionality within Twitter. Two years ago Burberry filmed their entire London Fashion Week show on 14 iPhone 5S’s and more recently streamed its London In LA show on Periscope. While many fashion brands are struggling to effectively utilize basic social media services such as Twitter, Burberry is taking the lead; publishing buzz worthy and social media friendly marketing that utilizes both short and long form engagement. The company’s strategy seems effective, with the combination of Snapchat and Periscope to broadcast their London In LA event generating over 100 million impressions around the globe.

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by Doug Parker
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