JanetMontealvo

Analyzing Virtual Closets

 Emerging Media  No Responses »
May 142012
 

Fashion apps and sites are trending right now, and there seems to be a new one gaining attention every week. While researching some of the latest fashion and style apps and websites, I realized that most of them pin their hopes of success on one lofty expectation: that consumers want to share their personal style with others. These fashion-related apps and websites would not work if people did not sign up for accounts, snap photos of themselves and their clothes, Like items they’ve seen online, aspire to learn name brands and designers, or were not willing to discuss their personal style with strangers. However, people do flock to these apps and sites—in droves.

I’m increasingly wary about creating any type of account that requests personal information or access to my Facebook account, but it sure seems as though many people accept that as part of the terms when they want to use a fashion and style tool. Eager to see what I was missing, I decided to try one out. After finding a fashion site that looked to turn Cher Horowitz’s virtual closet into a reality, I jumped at the chance to sign up.

Image Courtesy of Honey in the Sun blog

Continue reading »

Wearable Media Object Using LilyPad Arduino

 Emerging Media, Wearables, Workshop  No Responses »
May 042012
 

For my wearable media object, I chose to create an LEDs-only circuit using the LilyPad Arduino Board. After attending Ettiquette Creative’s LilyPad Arduino Workshop, I had the resources and references to begin my project. I installed the Arduino software, checked the drivers, and referred to a tutorial provided on the SparkFun Electronics site to design my wearable media object.

In order to allow the light display to be the focus of the media object, I sewed the LilyPad Arduino to the inside of the purse. The majority of the stitches are also on the inside of the bag, and the cloth flowers hide the more noticeable threads visible on the outside.

LilyPad Arduino

My goal with this project was to create a media object that could combine both style and technology. The outside of the purse has cloth flowers that camouflage the sewn-in LEDs. When the LilyPad Arduino is activated, the LEDs blink and fade in a random pattern. The soft blinking lights and smooth pattern are meant to tie back to the idea of flowers being delicate and graceful.

While I was working on my project, I wondered if there was a way to make the LEDs respond to the beat in music. I chose the track (in the video) with that in mind. I loved how the lights almost look like they’re dancing to the music. That might be something I’ll look into for a future LilyPad Arduino-related project.

Virtual Window at Bloomingdale’s Lets You “Try On” Sunglasses

 Emerging Media, Shopping, Wearables  1 Response »
Apr 262012
 

Window shopping is a phrase that usually implies looking at a display of mannequins wearing trendy garments and accessories, such as designer sunglasses and handbags. The visual displays are designed to lure customers by suggesting that they too can look fashionable in the same products. Thanks to Bloomingdale’s new virtual window displays, customers really can see themselves wearing designer sunglasses.

Image Courtesy of Mashable.com

The Lexington Avenue NYC Bloomingdale’s is currently featuring virtual LCD screens in six interactive windows through May 7. Each window has four options of sunglasses from designers such as Marc Jacobs, Roberto Cavalli, Miu Miu, Gucci, and FENDI, which any passerby can “try on” before walking into the store.

The window display locates a woman’s eyes and positions a selected pair of frames on her image as projected by the built-in camera. A front view and profile show the woman how the actual designer sunglasses might fit her face shape. If there is a pair that a shopper particularly likes, she can press the “Print” button. The selected style and virtual image are sent to a salesperson inside Bloomingdale’s who will help the customer try on and potentially buy the frames she saw in the window. Continue reading »

Color Forecast Website and App

 Emerging Media, Identity  No Responses »
Apr 192012
 

Want to know what the hottest color in street style fashion is in Paris? Milan? Antwerp? Then Color Forecast is the site for you! Created by European clothing retailer Pimkie, the new fashion orientated website features live streams of trendy streets in Paris, Milan, and Antwerp aimed at the idea that a person will want to know what color is trending that day.

Each of the three square screens in the middle of the webpage simultaneously move and interact with each other. The screen on the left is the live stream of a street in Paris, Milan, or Antwerp. The middle screen traces the color of the moving object’s (pedestrian’s) trajectory in the first screen against a black background. The third screen is a graph that calculates that information and displays a corresponding color scheme.

Image Courtesy of Color Forecast

The trending color report leads to a page that allows viewers to shop for clothing of the most viewed color on Pimkie’s site. Each day the featured color in each city is archived on the site. The website will soon be available as an iPhone app.

While watching the live stream in Antwerp, a couple dressed in neutral colors stopped and greeted a woman in a red puffy jacket. The red color sketched across the center screen mimicked the woman’s path in the first screen as she walked over to the couple. A color graph in the third screen featured red as the trending color. Continue reading »

Oscar de la Renta’s 2013 Bridal Collection on Pinterest

 Emerging Media  No Responses »
Apr 162012
 

Leave it to the Oscar de la Renta team to use the newest and fastest growing social photo-sharing site, Pinterest, to unveil the latest bridal collection. On Monday, April 16, 2012, Oscar de la Renta began live-pinning photos of the 2013 Bridal Show to its Pinterest board. Photos of the venue, show preparations, models, shoes, accessories, and, of course, the gowns, were being uploaded just as quickly as they were being liked and repinned on users’ personal Pinterest boards.

Image Courtesy of Oscar de la Renta’s Pinterest Board “bridal.”

On Pinterest, the photos speak for themselves. Instead of using Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook, Oscar de la Renta took a chance on a fairly new social platform to showcase the 2013 Bridal Collection. Considering how much buzz Pinterest continues to generate, maybe this was the best time for the fashion house to capitalize on the burgeoning photo-sharing site’s recent success.

The esteemed fashion house is no stranger to social media platforms. The Oscar de la Renta Tumblr was created last September in time for Fall 2011′s New York Fashion Week. The Tumblr account uploaded photos of the show in real-time as the entire show streamed in the center of the page. Continue reading »

Interactive Music Video: Shop While You Watch

 Emerging Media, Music videos, Representations, Shopping  1 Response »
Apr 062012
 

Remember when you would watch a music video, lust after the clothes you’d seen, and then scour the internet searching for similar threads? Gone are those days! Ssense, an online clothing retailer, has styled the “World’s First Interactive Shoppable Music Video.”

The music video “I Think She Ready” features duo FKi, rapper Iggy Azalea, and Grammy-nominated producer Diplo, and they are all styled by Ssense. The video uses interactive hotspot technology to allow fans to view and shop for every item that is seen in the video. During the music video, white square icons with the letter “S” pop up on the screen. Rolling over the icon will expand the “S” to “SHOP THIS LOOK”. Clicking on those icons will take you to a screen that shows each of the products worn in the selected shot. Each article of clothing links to the Ssense product page where the item can be viewed and added to a cart for purchase.

Image Courtesy of Ssense.com

Even though the white icons only appear sporadically throughout the video, do we really want music videos to display these distracting icons each time we watch them? If this trend catches on (and I think it will), perhaps the icons will become smaller or less intrusive in future music videos. Continue reading »

2012 Summer Olympics: Stella McCartney Unveils British Team’s Uniforms

 Identity, Representations  No Responses »
Mar 302012
 

Renowned British designer Stella McCartney recently revealed her Adidas designs for the Great Britain team’s uniforms. The prominent graphic on the bodice is McCartney’s unique take on the iconic Union Jack: “I thought it would be great if the design could make everyone feel like one team. I started with the Union flag, which I love—but it’s been so overused…So I isolated parts of the design and used it as a graphic.” McCartney also opted to use the color red, which is featured so dominantly on the flag, only sparingly.

Image Courtesy of Vogue and Stella McCartney

As an eco-conscious designer, McCartney was also pleased to announce that much of the sportswear was made from recycled materials: “Half a million plastic bottles have gone into all this!”

However, the uniforms were met with quite a number of dissenters. Critics of McCartney’s uniforms were enraged that the national flag had been manipulated and transformed into something almost unrecognizable. The red, white, and blue colored flag has been translated into a uniform that is mostly shades of blue with white and red as accents. Since the graphic wraps around the body, only half of the graphic is seen from the front. Continue reading »

Cell Phone Charging Handbag On Sale This Spring

 Emerging Media, Wearables  No Responses »
Mar 212012
 

Having to watch a cell phone battery die because there is no charger or charging station nearby is an incredibly frustrating and upsetting experience. Whether you were in the middle of a call, a text, a tweet, or listening to turn by turn directions in an area you’ve never been before (True story!), being disconnected from your mobile device can make you feel powerless. Richard Nicoll, a British fashion designer, may have developed a revolutionary device to ward off that vulnerability: Richard Nicoll’s Cell Phone Charging Handbag.

Ad Courtesy of The FashioniStyle

Debuting at last month’s London Fashion Week, the chic handbag has the capacity to charge iPhones, Androids, Blackberries, and even iPads. Once fully charged, the battery-operated handbag can offer extended use by simply plugging the device into an interior pocket. An accessory that hangs from the bag is a Bluetooth-enabled LED that emits light when there is an incoming call. Continue reading »

Fashion as Communication

 Annotated Bibliography, History  No Responses »
Mar 192012
 

‘Everybody has to get dressed in the morning and go about the day’s business. What everybody wears to do this has taken different forms in the West for about seven hundred years and that is what fashion is’ (Hollander 1994:11). Cf. Fashion and Clothing

The garments that we choose to wear send out a message to the public. The meaning behind the message, how that message has been created, and what the message ultimately says about ourselves and our culture, are among the many topics discussed in Malcolm Barnard’s Fashion as Communication (second edition).

According to Barnard, articles of clothing have no natural or God-given meaning inherently attached to them (113). The meaning behind the garment cannot be wholly assigned to the designer, the wearer, or even official authorities. Since the meaning of the garments tends to vary over time and across cultures, Barnard argues that fashion and clothing are a direct reflection of the society and culture to which they belong. Continue reading »

Is This the Future of Visual Merchandising?

 Emerging Media, Shopping  3 Responses »
Feb 142012
 

A lovely young woman sits with her purse in her lap and her phone in her hands. She coyly smiles, looks around, and yawns as she waits in a department store. If a stranger begins to pester her, she ignores him. This scenario is fairly ordinary. However, this is no ordinary young woman: this is an android mannequin responding to curious shoppers from the inside of a window display.

As part of a Valentine’s Day promotion, Tokyo department store Takashimaya will be displaying Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro’s Geminoid-F android mannequin in its store window. The life-like mannequin has a set of 60 different facial expressions at its disposal to lure in and interact with passing shoppers. The robot is connected to a Kinect sensor complete with facial recognition software that allows for it to have a unique response to each person who passes by.  Continue reading »