While we are weeks away from the Spring Summer 2015 shows, we are already anticipating the new looks that will carry forth from where the 2015 Resort collections hinted. And while the retro stories are almost a guarantee in the equation, there are more technical nuances that cannot be and are not being ignored.
Our world is increasing a technical one that cannot escape our attention. Technology grows more exponentially as materials development rises to make better wearables possible. Textiles with wiring embedded into the fibres not only allow wearables to be connected through the garment, but can include circuit board components printed into the textiles as well as tinier LEDs as part of the textile fibres. Multiple power options ranging from solar to kinetics are being fine-tuned to be incorporated into the garments. And screen tech innovations are producing thin flexible film that has potential to be added to garments. While start-ups are doing more of the developmental work it will be only a matter of time before the heavyweights find more stylish ways to incorporate these innovations.
The wearables market is also beginning to gain greater steam as Apple is scheduled to release its own anticipated wearable in watch form soon while it got in the news again by poaching another fashion executive this month, this time being ex-YSL executive Catherine Monier. And another option can find its way into fashion; wearables as tattoos are also being explored, and whereas last year saw Motorolla creating a wearable as a tattoo, one more recently created by the University of California is temporary and generates power via one’s sweat. That wearables can be this thin and placed anywhere like appliqués opens the door to further incorporation possibilities for the exploratory designer.
All of this makes us much closer to being connected in a different way: the cyber blending allows us to become part machine if you will. And this fits well with our societal movement towards robotics becoming our new future, an inevitability that is becoming of increasing concern in media that has long been inspiration for fashion.
Fashion, of course, has turned to robotics for inspiration in its marketing aspects. Alexander McQueen featured robotics in both his Spring Summer 1999 show in the finale and in the utilization of Milos on 50 foot tracks live streaming the Spring Summer 2010 show. In 2013, Vogue’s November issue featured a spread by photographer Steven Meisel that had robots in the shots. Robots were part of ad campaigns for Diesel in 2012, Henry Cotton in 2013, and more recently this summer for the Bjorn Borg label featuring a suggestive 3-way with a man, woman and robot.
The inspiration has grimmer aspects. Last year, Oxford researchers put out a report about half the jobs we know today as becoming obsolete via algorithm and robot replacement. It’s a huge concern when seeing that the Great Depression only had 25% unemployment; this is a future we have not prepared for. So while fashion has reflected the aspirational aspects of technology and the longer-rooted interests in robots that came post-war during the beginnings of the eventual space race, our better understanding of what a cyber-future will mean now may have different connotations.
Will fashion reflect a Luddite rejection as this realization of human obsolescence becomes clearer the way horses became unnecessary post-Industrial Revolution, or will it reflect a full-on embrace? Architectural modernity in fashion would suggest the latter while retro fashion with organic print inspirations might suggest the former. And as we have seen both in the 2015 Resort collections throughout in all major city presentations, we only know the market is catering to both perspectives. Ad campaigns reflect our fascination while tech becomes further integrated with fashion. Meanwhile, sales records show the successes with retro inspired fashion such as the huge success of Yves St. Laurent at the hands of Hedi Slimane.
We can speculate until the upcoming collections reflect what we favour. Or we could just consult a logarithm. Your choice…for now.