All posts filed under: Fashion Design

About Jaden Smith As The New Face Of Louis Vuitton And Gender-Bending Fashion

In a piece of topsy-turvy fashion news, the new face of Louis Vuitton’s womenswear line is not a woman. This turn of events speaks to the legendary designer’s forward-looking fashion sense as much as the androgynous charm of Vuitton’s new model, Jaden Smith. The photographs from iconic fashion photographer Bruce Weber debuted last week on the Instagram account of Louis Vuitton creative director Nicolas Ghesquière. The photo shows Smith decked out in an embroided skirt, fringe top, and moto jacket that debuted during Paris Fashion Week. Although gender-bending is nothing new on fashion or pop culture, Ghesquière’s collection is the most recent example of gender-bending fashion design to hit mainstream media attention. Gucci’s F/W 2015 men’s collection featured waifish men appearing beside boyish women, both wearing silhouettes, fabrics, and items of clothing traditionally associated with women’s fashion. Gucci’s new designer Alessandro Michele collection saw men and women alike wearing pussycat bow blouses, midriff jackets, and low-riding, wide-legged trousers. Male and female models alike sported matching make-up, with loose, flowing, unbound hair. This approach is working …

Digitized Fabrics Could Turn Your Wardrobe Into Wearable Touchscreens

While smartphones that bend and flex under pressure are just now coming onto the market, Google and a handful of scrappy startups are imagining a future where sensitive, connected surfaces will make the jump from the phones in our pockets to the shirts on our backs. Literally. Tech Startups like Athos have been working towards this goal for years, creating Bluetooth-enabled fabrics that operate through a series of integrated Bluetooth sensors. But Project Jacquard, a new initiative from Google, is taking the technology to the next level with an experimental conductive fabric that has “technology woven in.” Jacquard allows potential smart clothing startups to weave conductive yarns made from metallic alloys blended with traditional mediums like polyester and silk into regular fabrics, essentially turning the finished yards of fabric into giant woven touchscreens. Motion capture and touch sensitivity paired with an arsenal of integrated electronics allow app developers to “hack” the resulting garments on an intimate level. While current consumer tech “wearables” like the Microsoft Band enable users to track their physical stats through their …