Future of Fashion: Wearable Tech, Smart Fabric and 3D Printing

Fashion Forward
Future of fashion
Created by Kalika Sharma
@2013, ICE, All rights reserved
November 2014

Index
18/08/14
2
3. Future of fashion and UX:
• Wearable tech
• Smart fabric
• 3D printing
• Biocouture
• Biomimicry
• Virtual fitting rooms
• Bionic fashion
Fashion Forward
1. Current state of the fashion industry
• Increasing demand for fast fashion
• Production and distribution in a
globalised world
• Impact on the environment, labour,
etc.
2. Innovations in fashion
• Use of alternate materials
• Improvements in production process
• Setting standards for ethical clothing

The textile and apparel industry is one of the largest industries globally.
Clothing, even if we were to assume it performed a more basic function
sans fashion, catering to a world population of 7 billion people is already a
pressure on the planet.
Today there is an ever-increasing demand for women and men's
fashion that has given rise to a greater need to keep up with trends, rapidly
shift to the latest, novel designs, and as a result consume more.
To cater to this need, a new kind of supply chain is born - one that is
desperate to meet this demand, exploitative, unethical and unhealthy for the
planet.
Reality check
3
Current state of the fashion industry

Key trends and the rise of fast fashion
4
Source: Greenpeace International

Fast Fashion and its Impact
So what is fast fashion?
Fast fashion refers to keeping up with rapid changes in
fashion trends that go from the catwalk to the market,
encouraging consumers to buy more at a cheaper price.
As the fast fashion cycle diagram shows, there is and
ever shortening production cycle, with timelines being
compressed.
Ironically, with more sales, prices are on a
downward spiral as large fashion companies have
moved to a global production system, which uses the
cheapest labour to produce and sell to the maximum.
5

Source: Euromonitor International
6

7

Increasing sales and lowering prices
• The global apparel market was valued at US $ 1.7 trillion in 2012
and employed 75 million people.' (Fashionunited) As per the
Euromonitor international's report of March 2014, the global apparel
and footwear market is due to reach the US $ 2 trillion mark by
2018.
• As we see, the sheer sales of this industry on the the rise, we also
witness the prices spiralling downwards. A sign of some players in
the production process being shortchanged for their work.
• In the case of fast fashion, labour from countries like Bangladesh,
India, Vietnam, etc. are the ones that face most exploitation by this
system.
8

The market for fashion is very strong among BRICS countries, which are also populous
countries.
9

10
China is leading the way globally in terms of pure demand for fast fashion, followed by the US.

11
Menswear has not only caught up with women's wear but for 2013 has exceeded women's
wear in terms of sale.

12
Footwear has consistently shown better growth than apparel over time.

Impact of fashion in hyper-production
mode
Fast fashion is causing two main disasters in the world
• One is the sheer exploitation of labour across the world in
terms of unfair wages, employing child labour, and
production in inhuman conditions
• And two is the damage to the environment, from the
pesticides that are used on the cotton crop to the including
release of toxic chemicals into water bodies during the
production process and the consumption of a great amount
of energy.
13

Impact of Fast Fashion: Exploitation
14
The collapse of Rana Plaza garment factory in April 2013 in Bangladesh killed over
1000 and injured more than 2,500 people. Many fast fashion companies are
accountable.

Impact of Fast Fashion: Exploitation
"According to a 2011 report by the
consulting firm O’Rourke Group
Partners, a generic $14 polo shirt
sold in Canada and made in
Bangladesh actually costs a retailer
only $5.67. To get prices that low,
workers see just 12 cents a shirt, or
two per cent of the wholesale cost."
Rosemary Westwood, From the archives:
Bangladesh disaster raises tough questions
about cheap clothes (Macleans)
15

Impact of fast fashion: Pollution
Source: Greenpeace International

Sustainable innovations in fashion
• Airflow dyeing technology that enables dry dyeing saves several
gallons of a water
• Alternative materials for creation of fabric are being experimented
with
17
Airflow dry dyeing technique

• Recycled materials are being used to create clothes
• Materials other than the over-produced cotton, such as hemp,
bamboo, and jute, are gradually becoming more popular
18
Use of Jeans made of recycled bottles alternative materials, e.g., cork

Fair trade standards are
being set across the world,
ensuring that the labour
producing fashion are being
fairly paid
19
The Global Organic Textile
Standard (GOTS) has been
put in place as a certification
for sustainability across the
entire production process

Movement towards sustainable fashion
20
"It doesn't mean therefore you have
to just buy anything cheap. Instead of
buying six things, buy one thing that
you really like. Don't keep buying just
for the sake of it…. I just think people
should invest in the world. Don't
invest in fashion, but invest in the
world.“ – Vivienne Westwood

Versatile garments can be worn in several
ways
21
http://vimeo.com/67903087 - click to watch how the Versalette can be worn in different ways

The evolution of fashion
The future of fashion is sustainable and takes the function of clothing
to another level. No longer will clothes be performing their basic
functions of covering the human body and providing aesthetic value,
but clothes will be involved with our health, communication, safety and
so on.
We could look at the future of fashion in the following directions:
• Wearable tech
• Smart fabric
• 3D printing
• Virtual fitting rooms
22

The rise of smart clothes
With work, learning, gaming, shopping and other activities going
mobile, it's also expected and is becoming true that clothing will go that
way. The functions of a mobile phone for example can all be integrated
into a fashionable garment and the revolution has already begun.
23
World's first Twitter dress that
integrates social media with
fashion. Fans can tweet to
Nicole Scherzinger's account
to see their message appear
on the dress in public.

Wearable tech in fashion
Some say that the wearable tech phenomenon is only a step on the
way for technology being external to the human body to tech becoming
part of the body. All the same, it is an important step of technology not
only being worn on our person but also becoming a factor to consider
in terms of the styles we choose to wear.
24
Carrie Underwood wearing a
projection-mapping dress at
the Grammy Awards 2013.
LED and projection-mapping
could in the future,
completely eliminate the
need for dyeing and printing
of clothes.

Wearable tech: smart accessories
Footlogger provides a
fitness tracking device
that is embedded in the
sole of the shoe
becoming a health and
fitness tracker that gives
precise information on
foot strike position, etc.
Cuff provides smart jewelry that has three main
features - notifications for calls, texts, etc., activity
tracking like a pedometer, and safety alert messages
the user can send if in danger,
Source: cuff.io25
Source: engadget.com

Biocouture: Grow your own
Suzanne Lee, Senior Research
Fellow at Central St. Martins,
University of the Arts London
has successfully "grown" a new
type of fabric using green tea,
sugar, bacteria and yeast.
This culture grown in a vat of
liquid is at the cutting-edge of
biocouture and is an invaluable
discovery in the world of
fashion, which is getting
increasingly concerned with the
unsustainable consumption of
fabric.
26

Revolutions in the manufacturing process
• As of today, 3D printing is accessible to a few in the
luxury segment and involves the work of the fashion
designer and the geek world of computers.
• The potential of 3D printing and it's use to the world of
fashion is tremendous. We can envision a future where the
user who has access to a 3D printer at home being able to
create custom garments for themselves.
27

Does the future of garment-making lie in code?
"Selling code is not something that sounds inviting to
designers. It's like you're selling the sketch but letting go of
how it's produced. Designers spend so much time
selecting the right material, deciding how it's going to be
stitched, how it's going to be cut. To let that all go is
incredibly scary."
Liz Bacelar, founder of fashion technology incubator, Decoded Fashion
- Source: Mashable April 2014
28

Role of computers and 3D printing
According to designer Francis
Bintoni, "technology redefines
material as information, as data."
(Mashable April 2014) making the
possibilities in fashion design
virtually infinite.
29
Dita von Teese wearing a 3D-printed
dress designed by Francis Bitonti in
collaboration with Shapeways and
costume designer Michael Schmidt

Role of computers and 3D printing
• The issue of wastage of material in the garment-making process is
completely eliminated with the precision afforded.
• The possibility of recycling materials is much higher.
30
Fabric-saving computer technique (DPOL)"

Biomimcry: nature-inspired design
• Biomimicry is an innovative
possibility in 3D printing that
involves mimicking designs
from nature.
• Some fashion designers take
inspiration and insights from
nature to approach their
creations, resulting in smarter
materials and construction.
31
Dutch fashion designer Marieka Ratsma
and American architect Kostika Spaho
designed this hollow-heeled shoe
inspired by the skull of a bird, resulting
in an efficient, light weight shoe that
uses less material, make possible
because of 3D printing.
Source: DeZeen Magazine, July 2012

Biomimcry: nature-inspired design
32
Reptilian biomimicry, Source: ecouterre.com

Virtual fitting rooms
With the rise of e-commerce, the need for virtual fitting rooms is on the rise as well.
33
Virtual fitting shop that is
in-store at TopShop.
Source: NewsComAu
eBay has acquired PhiSix which
Integrates 3-D Virtual Try-on technology
Source: techcrunch.com

What does it mean for UX designers?
• The future of the fashion
industry will evolve along
with other industries that
might be going in a similar
direction, where we can
expect a converging of
several functions into
apparel and accessories
• The opportunity for UX
designers is to make this
process meaningful to
users. There will be a
plethora of issues to deal
with including data
analysis, privacy, and so
on.
34

Power to the user and the role of UX
• The future: Make your own and print
your own will become common in the
future, with people printing out clothes
to their exact measurements and with
the precise prints they want. It will
also be possible to recycle materials
in the same machine.
• The opportunity for UX is to create
an extremely user-friendly experience
for this home clothes-making process.
At the moment, 3D printing is
considered accessible to only a few
and operating it is the work of 'geeks';
there is huge potential here to aid the
lay person in creating their own
clothes.
35
Lady Gaga's wore a bubble-producing
3D printed dress to the
iTunes festival in 2013.

Virtual fitting rooms: A huge opportunity in UX
• Major players like eBay and Amazon have entered the space
of using 3D technology to make the fitting room experience
very sophisticated.
• People find it hard to imagine themselves wearing the outfit
they see online and don't know if the look and feel would suit
their body type, so there is a huge area of improvement with
fitting technology.
• Selling clothing remains a big challenge for online sales at
the moment. "Online retail revenues are still a very small
fraction of total retail revenues: only 7% are sold online
comparing to 61% of books and 50% of computers." -
fittingreality.com
36

Data on wearables and activity tracking
Data from US customers in 2014 shows that a large percentage of users would use wearables
for tracking fitness, health, sleep, etc. (81% in total) with only 19% of users saying they would
never use a wearable. However, in reality, only 2.5% of users actually have wearables.
Therefore, there is room for great improvement in the wearable device segment.
37

Human-centred tech: bionic fashion
• The future holds a lot of opportunities for wearable tech, and yet
people today have not easily taken to becoming users of it.
• The opportunity for designers of wearable fashion is essentially to
make it as human-centred as possible.
• This would give way to bionic fashion
This LED mood sweater (developed
by Sensoree) lets you know how a
person is feeling. If it glows blue, the
person is relaxed and red means the
person is excited, nervous or in love.
38

Human-centred tech: bionic fashion
The DareDroid dress uses mood
censors, customised hardware, and
medical technology to prepare the
perfect drink for your evening party!
39
This Climate Dress has LED
lights that blink slowly responding
to normal levels of greenhouse
gasses and blink rapidly in
polluted areas. Designed by
Danish design firm, Diffus

References
• Cover image: LED dress on Flickr (https://www.flickr.com/photos/orijinal/3235981786/ accessed
on 20 August 2014)
• Key highlights from Euromonitor's apparel and footwear research, Euromonitor International,
March 2014: (http://go.euromonitor.com/rs/euromonitorinternational/images/key-highlights-apparel-
footwear-2014.pdf accessed on 20 August 2014)
• Fast fashion cycle: Greenpeace International, Toxic Threads: The big fashion stitch-up
(http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/publications/toxics/Water%202012/T
oxicThreads01.pdf accessed on 21 August 2014)
• What does a 14 $ tshirt really cost? Rosemary Westwood, May 2013, Macleans
(http://www.macleans.ca/economy/business/what-does-that-14-shirt-really-cost/ accessed on 23
August 2014)
• Bionic fashion: Wearable tech that will turn man into machine by 2015, by Arion McNicoll and
Jenny Soffel, CNN, http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/25/tech/innovation/bionic-fashion-wearable-tech-
2015/
• http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Most-Consumers-Dont-Tote-Wearables-GymYet/1011124/1
• Most consumers don't tote wearables to the gym - yet, Emarketer, Aug 2014,
http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Most-Consumers-Dont-Tote-Wearables-GymYet/1011124/1
• The future of fashion is code not couture, says designer, Rebecca Hiscott, Mashable, !'t April
2014, http://mashable.com/2014/04/04/francis-bitonti-3d-printing/
• Biomimicry shoe by Marika Ratsma and Kostika Spaho, DeZeen Magazine, July 2012,
http://www.dezeen.com/2012/07/17/biomimicry-shoe-by-marieka-ratsma-and-kostika-spaho/
40

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41
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Future of Fashion: Wearable Tech, Smart Fabric and 3D Printing

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