Q&A: What does Donald Trump’s Presidential victory mean for the economy? Adidas creates trainers made out of ocean waste in effort to reduce plastic in waters around world. Will Genderless Fashion Change Retail? | Intelligence | BoF. (L-R) Raf Simons Menswear Spring/Summer 2014, Gucci Menswear Autumn/Winter 2015, J.W Anderson Menswear Spring/Summer 2014 | Source: Indigital LONDON, United Kingdom — Alessandro Michele’s womenswear debut for Gucci was, by far, the most anticipated show of Milan Fashion Week. How would Michele attempt to re-reinvigorate Kering’s ailing cash cow, after chief executive François-Henri Pinault said in December that the brand needed a fresh point of view and more daring shows? The answer: bookish, pussy-bow wearing boys and girls, sharing both the runway and the same tailoring, shoulder-length locks and cut-glass cheekbones.
Indeed, the show eradicated the last vestiges of Gucci’s hyper-sexualized Tom Ford era, which had, at times, chimed within Frida Giannini’s vision for the brand. Michele is not alone in his exploration of what it means to clothe both sexes in a time when gender stereotypes read as traditional, even archaic. But will genderless work at retail? Perhaps not. Op-Ed | What 3D Printing Means for Fashion | Opinion, Op Ed | BoF. Designer Iris van Herpen has pioneered the use of 3D printing in couture fashion | Photo: Molly SJ Lowe PARIS, France — 3D printing was born in the 1980s and has long been used for “rapid prototyping.”
Now, the technology is accelerating exponentially and being employed to manufacture finished products, including fashion and luxury goods. Several reasons explain this acceleration, from the expiry of relevant patents to progress in materials science and software. Today, it is easy to scan an object, turning atoms into bits, and then print it out, turning those bits back into atoms. Digital design has also advanced by leaps and bounds. From the moment we, as children, proudly make sand castles, we are accustomed to subtractive manufacturing, whereby a mould is filled to create an object. 3D printing is the opposite: additive manufacturing, where very fine layers of material are superimposed according to a digital design to the point where they end up building a distinct object. Could reinvention solve our shopping addiction?
Image copyright EpicStockMedia, Thinkstock Swedish retail giant H&M seems an unlikely poster child for ecological living. The High Street group, which owns brands including Monki and Cos and has more than 4,000 shops across the world, is one of the best known proponents of fast fashion. It's a cheap and reliable source of trendy clothes which can be discarded as soon as another trend comes in. Yet it has pledged to become "100% circular", ultimately using only recycled or other sustainable materials to make its clothes.
It's a journey that more fashion firms are beginning to take, with the so-called "circular economy" - which eliminates waste by turning it into something valuable - being seen as a possible solution to the vast amount of clothes that end up in landfill. Image copyright Thomas Concordia, H&M Last year, a fifth of the material H&M used was sustainably sourced, and it has gathered 32,000 tonnes worth of old clothing in the collection bins it has had in all its stores since 2013. How does social media shape our perception of beauty? A male friend of mine who considers himself "big on Tinder" claims the winning five photo formula is this: front-on photo, side profile photo, photo showing teeth, body photo and height photo, involving a casual scale prop such as Kylie Minogue.
If you're not better looking on Tinder than in real life, you have failed. It's the most gratifying, terrifying, humanity-destroying platform ever created. But then again it's responsible for actually quite a lot of nice loving relationships… While Tinder must be the worst offender, the impact of social media on perceptions of beauty is inevitably positive and negative, depending on which way you look. You might meet the love of your life through tactful photo-editing, you might feel terrible forever, or you might be one of the mental few to enter hyperreality, transcending your human form into… well this… Of course, it's all a matter of perspective. Take instagram fantasy Petra Collins, who I recently interviewed for i-D's Spring Issue. What Technology Will Look Like In Five Years. Diomedes KastanisCrunch Network Contributor Diomedes Kastanis head of technology for business unit support systems, leading Ericsson’s long-term technology vision and innovation across media, OSS, BSS and m-commerce.
How to join the network As a driver of technical innovation for a software company, a huge part of my job depends on forecasting how current tech trends will play out, merge, dissipate or expand. Here are some of my predictions of what the world will look like in 2020. Revised Notions Of Ownership Think of the things you use every day: your smart phone, your computer, your desk and so on. However, in the future, you’ll probably share most of them. We’ve recently seen a huge rise in the sharing economy; not only can you stay in someone else’s house via Airbnb, but you can sail in someone else’s boat through Sailo, fly in someone else’s private plane via OpenAirplane and go snowboarding with someone’s else’s board via Spinlister.
This is only the first wave. Oh, and that office? INTO THE FASHION: Cultural Influences On Trend Forecasting. For everyone who works in the fashion business it is important to be able to recognize and to foresee social and cultural movements, in order to understand the fashion environment and to be able to operate in the direction in which the fashion industry will move. Being able to anticipate what will happen in the next future is what puts a fashion designer, a retailer or a fashion buyer in the position to make better decisions in their work. And in this, fashion is not at all an isolated industry but is connected to the rest of our life. Fashion reaches beyond clothing and into the way we choose to live our lives. Lifestyle is how we communicate, how we travel, how we decorate our homes, how we eat and how we dress. Lifestyle and trends are strongly influenced by social-cultural changes, such as modernization, technological innovation and also by artistic movements.
Popular culture, or pop culture, is a cultural section, which is followed, understood and appreciated by a larger audience. What Brexit Means for the Fashion Industry. Today's news that Britain has voted to leave the European Union has sent stock markets plunging and hammered the British pound, which hit its lowest point in decades. Although it will likely take years for Britain to untangle itself from the EU, many in the fashion industry are left questioning what the change could mean for their livelihoods. Of course, London is a major fashion player, with the fashion industry contributing an estimated $38 billion to the UK economy in 2014, according to the Business of Fashion. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below A weak pound and uncertainty about new tariffs could mean major challenges for UK-based businesses, which often source fabrics and produce in other parts of Europe.
Before last night's vote, the British Fashion Council surveyed its members and found that the vast majority—90% of members—wanted to remain in the EU. This turmoil is predicted to affect prices of items coming into and out of Britain, as well. Getty. The Impact of Pop Art on the World of Fashion – From Art to Industry and Back. Ever since pop art emerged in the fifties, it has been going hand in hand with the fashion industry. Rebelling against elitist values and self-reflexive expressionist movement, pop art embraced mundane living experiences, introducing aspects of mass culture and bringing art closer to the new generation of Americans who were starting to experience all benefits of the consumer paradise in the welfare state of post-war America. Pop art employed familiar mass culture imagery from advertisements to other banal objects, wrapping it into sensational and bold color combinations.
Richard Hamilton, one of the pop art pioneers used to describe pop art as “popular, transient, expandable, low cost, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy, gimmicky, glamorous, big business”. All these qualities pop art shared with consumerist culture and fashion industry as one of its main features. Philip Colbert – Venus In Sequins dress collection inspired by various iconic works of art The Souper Dress Editors’ Tip: Pop!