Technology normally isn't seen on the catwalk. Usually, tech products are reserved for product launches by its manufacturers. Sometimes, however, technology does find its way into fashion, just like in Paris Fashion Week. Hussein Chalayan and Intel have partnered for the event to bring something different.
For his Spring/Summer collection presentation, Chayalan and Intel worked together to have the models have mobile wearables in the form of glasses and belts, as Ubergizmo reports. The smart glasses have EEG electrodes in them that monitor brainwaves, as well as a heart monitor and microphone.
The belts the models wore also had pico projectors from which the wearer's stress levels can be viewed by images and animation. The belt and glasses work together by having information from the glasses passed onto the belt through Bluetooth. The devices are powered by the Intel Compute Stick, according to Forbes.
Though the glasses and belts were used for a fashion event, the purpose of the devices is to aid the wearer towards awareness about his/her stress level. By being aware of one's stress level proper stress management can be performed. Those wearing the device could also see how stress image changes as stress levels fluctuate.
"Intel's years of experience, out of the box mentality, commitment to innovation and level of perfection has made this project one of the most valuable and exciting collaborations for me in years," Chalayan said of the event. He also said that he has been working with wearable technology for many years and would like to work with ideas that would be close as possible to a real product.
Whether the Intel technology shown at the Paris Fashion Week would be available to consumers soon isn't certain yet. Sandra Lopez, Vice-President of the New Technology Group at Intel said that ideas often come out of R&D labs and many of them are not sure if such ideas would be feasible commercially or not. The event with Chalayan though would help Intel to see which of those used might be adapted commercially.
Fashion and technology could work together, as evidenced by the smartwatches now coming out. A well-designed technological product could become a fashion statement. The key to technology shouldn't only be usability but aesthetics as well.
The Intel wearables used at Paris would also be on display in London at the Design Museum's "Fear and Love: Reactions to a Complex World," exhibit which would be coming in November.
Fashion also comes with technology, as Fossil shows with its Android wearables, as iTechPost reports.
