TECH Fashion Week 2018 Recap
Last week Dhana had the privilege to attend San Francisco Tech Fashion Week™️ 2018: Fashion’s Immersive Future. The week-long event included workshops, panel discussions, presentations, social mixers and of course, fashion shows aimed to promote, educate, build, and celebrate the immerging fashion-tech community. Over the course of the week players of tech and fashion came together to converse on the different ways in which applications of technology like augmented/virtual realities, machine learning, wearables, 3D design printing and sustainability systems are redefining the infrastructure of fashion and fashion ecosystems.
At Dhana, we were especially curious in two technologies that we believe will redefine the way in which brands communicate with their consumers: VR/AR and A.I. (Artificial Intelligence).
Monday, March 26th: Consumer Adoption of VR/AR
This event’s thought provoking panelist consisted of:
- Kaveh Vahdat, Founder of RideAngle, Inc. www.riseangle.com
- Chris Leon Platz, Creative Director VR/AR and Conceptual/Interaction Design, Lecturer at Santa Clara University https://www.linkedin.com/in/chplatz/
- Rania Reda, Founder & CEO of Augmania www.augmania.com
- Mediator: Logan Johnston, Community Engagement at Outdoorsy
Throughout the inclusive conversation on how the presence of immersive technologies are changing the course in which brands engage with their customers, there were two key insights:
- Immersive technology = a new way of storytelling, allowing brands to connect their audience with the hands and hearts within supply chains, evoking emotion and a general call-to-action to think deeper about consumption and shopping habits
- Personalization in retail = new wave of changing rooms. With the adoption of augmented realities and consumers’ consent, fashion tech stores will offer new methods for shoppers to see themselves wearing the garment instead of having to try them on. For anyone that loves to shop but always hates trying on clothes, this is your silver lining.
Whether you know or care about VR/AR, we suggest you stay in the know, because it will be the new “IT” (no pun-intended) way of shopping in the future.
Wednesday, March 28th: Retailing in the Age of (A.I.) Artificial Intelligence
Held in the trendy, co-working office space, Eco-System, our interactive conversation on A.I. in retail and fashion mirrored the environment. Overall, the panel discussion touched on what A.I. will look like in fashion in regards to how machine learning is changing the manner in which business operates (look at Amazon’s supply chain), design by aggregating user data to predict trends and personalization based on recommendations, style preferences and exact consumer measurements.
So, what can we predict will be the latest trends you should be looking out for? Blockchains, cryptocurrency, decentralization and democratization. Not your typical fashion jargon? We know. But we also know that companies like Synapse AI are questioning what people will look like in this process of adopting machine learning into the world of fashion and how to liberate the user to obtain control of our data. Essentially Synapse AI will allow users to sell their data to machine learning services which businesses can purchase to adopt into their operations (imagine Nordstrom paying you to shop online) all through a decentralized network sharing marketplace using blockchains. Why do we care? Why should you? Because this is the ethical future of (fashion) technology and we at Dhana prioritize all decisions in balancing profit, planet, and YOU, the people.
If you are a little spooked about recent data breaching and want to know more, check out this easy to read explanation on what Synapse AI can do for you...and your wallet.
By the end of the week, our visions at Dhana became realities as we discovered how application technology are allowing brands to rethink how we conduct fashion and offering new systems to support the relationship between brands, consumers and the unheard within the fashion industry.
As members of Global Fashion Agenda’s 2020 Circular Fashion Systems Commitment, we are proud to be part of the movement adopting new technology into our supply chain practices, innovating new textiles restructuring the current “take-make-dispose” model and establishing a new foundation to communicate our processes via immersive fashion.