New York: Fashion and technology have often gone hand in hand, improve the supply chains and bringing the runways of the world to the masses, but robot designs were central during this week in New York.
The dresses were conceived with the help of a kit designed by Anina Trepte, a former model and founder of the 360Fashion Network, who wants designers to integrate technology into their work, even if they cannot cod themselves.
“I am on a mission to encourage other women to go into technology,” TrePte told AFP.
On TrePte’s Initiative, designers Clare Tattersall and Azrael Yang used the kits to call up six dresses that were revealed in a Harlem church during a show organized by Melange, a movement that promotes diversity in fashion and art.
Tattersall, a Brit who lives in New York, created one dress with large futuristic petals that open in themselves and mechanically close-the perfect striking cocktail clothing.
A second dress has a large silver roof that goes up and down with a click on the button.
The latter is a suitable dress for the #MeToo era.
It features pieces of metal applied to one shoulder, and when hidden movement sensors detect someone who is too close, the metal rattle and shakes.
Yang, who is located in Beijing, got her inspiration from the ocean and seaweed for her work, which gently waves like waves, led by sensors and environmental data.
“A phenomenal result,” TrePte said about the dresses.
– ‘Creative Tool’ – –
TrePte, a long-born German woman with red hair and big blue eyes, gave up the catwalks and moved to Beijing more than ten years ago to devote himself to fashion tech.
“All designs and technology on these clothing were made by women – and the men did it, ha ha ha!” she said.
For Tattersall, the founder of the New York-based fashion technology company Thunderlily, education is the key.
“My goal is to get girls involved in mathematics and technology, to show them that technology is a creative tool,” she said AFP.
Tattersall teaches girls of all ages about portable technology, which in the future she can be especially important in terms of improving our health and fitness.
The dresses were also shown at a separate exhibition on the Union Square of New York, along with some of Trepte’s own portable technology -jewelry that lights up, portfolios that charge mobile phones and a “SOS” ring that sends a text and a GPS location to an emergency contact.
You could also see kits to make gloves with LED lights or jackets with heating, and even a robot that can prepare cocktails and is activated by portable technology hidden in the sleeves of a jacket.
– a special guest –
There was a special guest on both the Harlem show and the subsequent exhibition – the humanoid robot Sophia, made by Hanson Robotics.
Her facial features and gestures are lifelike – up to her eyelashes. The effect is nerve -racking.
During the blend show in Harlem, she gave a speech about diversity. On the catwalk: models of all shapes and sizes, varieties and sexual orientations.
Rag & Bone joined the robot pleasure-for his big return to New York Fashion Week after an absence of three years, it has used a gigantic robot arm to film his catwalk show.
The images were shown live to the public on gigantic LED screens.
The robot arm – which was connected to sensors that recorded the movements of the models – was almost a character in the show, according to Aaron Duffy, who directed the robot for the show.
It went from “kind of playful” to “pretty scary”, Duffy told Fast Company Magazine.
