Technology on the Runway: A Look Back at the Technology of Project Runway Season 7

Posted on by Ashley Laurel

Tonight marks the end end of Project Runway, Season 7. From Anthony’s charm to Emilio’s ego to Mila and Jay’s ongoing spat, I have to say this was a fun season to watch. But it wouldn’t have been the same without the stylish tech tools used throughout the season.

Like every other season, Tim Gunn continued to encourage this season’s designers to “use the Bluefly wall thoughtfully”. For anyone who’s not a Project Runway fan or social shopper out there, Bluefly.com is a top fashion and lifestyle e-commerce sites where shoppers can find luxury goods (think L.A.M.B., Prada and Zac Posen) at discounted prices. This season, like the others, the Bluefly wall served as the one stop shopping location for any accessories that the designers didn’t make themselves.

But the show’s technology went further than the usual collaboration with Bluefly and a fun Twitter account to follow: (@ProjectRunway, an account with more than 20,000 followers).

As announced back in January, the real showstopper of the season was the integration of Hewlett-Packard and Intel technology. Throughout this season of Project Runway, designers didn’t merely sketch on paper, they were instead each given an HP Touchsmart tm2 tablet PC to sketch on with digital pens.

And, for the first time in Project Runway history, contestants were given the opportunity to create garments based on patterns they’d created using HP TouchSmart PCs and Intel Core 2 Duo processors. Patterns were created using screens that read pinches, rotations, flips and drags by just the touch of a finger. Vivienne Tam (basically the fashion spokesperson for HP) even stopped by. But, as Jonathan proved, a smart color palette still counts, no matter how high tech fashion may get.

Fans could even get involved with the tech hype by entering the season’s HP Envy 15 contest by predicting the top three finalists of season 7.

Well congratulations to Seth Aaron (my favorite!) for winning Project Runway and a $50,000 prize package from Intel and HP!

For more details about the technology featured this season, buy skins based off of the designers’ work throughout the season, visit ProjectRunway.com/hp. And if you haven’t already, don’t forget to check out Tim Gunn’s blog. Project Runway may have just helped the a lot of the world realize how important technology will be to fashion in the future, but it’d never be the same without the show’s fashionable wordsmith and mentor.

Project Runway, if you really want to get tech-friendly, I hope you bring back more wearable tech artists, like Diana Eng, in the future! Now that would be fashion meeting technology.

UNIQLO Creates Interactive Virtual Fashion Show

Posted on by Ashley Laurel


Ready for this? A virtual fashion show that’s not only visually stimulating, but also lets you choose outfits literally off the models to learn more information while the show continues on- no more waiting for details until after the show.

UNIQLO, a Japan-based casual wear clothing brand that’s been around since 1984 (the same year Steve Jobs debuted the first Apple Macintosh computer) has become super tech-friendly in its recent endeavor. New York Fashion Week may make more headlines where I live, but UNIQLO’s Tokyo 2009 Collection is the most unique show I’ve seen in months, in terms of technology anyway.

My only complaint is that you can’t check out what other show “attendees” are wearing- half the fun of attending a show.


 

Seventeen Magazine’s Virtual Fashion Show

Posted on by Ashley Laurel

When I was a Seventeen Magazine reader I used to cut out pictures of outfits I liked and make collages or decorate my room. Now teens can just hop on Twitter and learn about Seventeen’s virtual modeling competition.

How does this it all work? Seventeen hosted Back-to-School Fashion month on Habbo (basically Second Life for teens) and then ran a modeling competition on the social network/virtual site called “Habbo Model”.

Teens participated in a series of online gaming competitions, including a Runway Warm-up, Runway Design Challenge, a Quick Chance (not sure what this means), and Trivia, ending in a final virtual runway show today.

Perhaps this winner will be featured in a future issue of the magazine?

Wearable Tech Event: 5 Days Off

Posted on by Ashley Laurel


The Dutch Institute for Media and the 5 Days Off festival boasted a segment called “Wearable Technology- Powered Art and Fashion Design” from July 15th– 19th. Innovators Sabine Seymour, author of the book “Fashionable Technology” (which is a great read by the way!), Di Mainstone of Sharewear, Elena Corchero of Solar Vintage, Mauro Arrighi of DADAgear, and others, showed off their fashionably techie work. The work showcased the intersection of fashion and technology in terms of, as the event website says, “a vision for the future of our second skin, our clothes, a relevant element in our social life, in our communication and our interaction with others. This is achieved by the seamless incorporation of electronics in textiles”. 

Currently dying to attend an event like this.