If the Pod fits, wear it
By Janice Breen Burns | theage.com.au | 07 November
Fashion's symbiotic relationship with hand-held technology was clinched with the brick-sized mobile phones of the 1980s.
Nothing so handy could be left so clunky, let alone unadorned, for long. Not in this frightfully fashionable age, anyway.
Fashion's natural inclination to slimness and sleekness has skewed the design of phones, MP3 players, laptops and cameras ever since. Tiny and thin-as-a-biscuit hand-helds have been the new black for years, and there is no designer brand worth its global logo that hasn't yet jumped into bed with a high-tech manufacturer to develop its own slick little sliver of vibrating futurism. Pop a Prada touch phone into your quilted clutch purse, for instance (the one Miuccia collaborated on with LG), slip a glossy, beeping black Armani into your suit pocket (the one Giorgio collaborated on with Samsung), or flip open a tricky bit of bling by Dolce & Gabbana for Motorola, and it's certain you'll not only be noticed, but assumed to be chummier with "The Now'' than any Average Joe.
"Fashion has expanded to encompass our way of life, not just how we dress,'' says Armani. "We make as much of a personal statement with the mobile phone we carry as we do with the shoes and bags we wear.''
Fashion is also as much about "skin'' as it is about the latest technological "bones'', so a tech-accessory fashion industry has evolved to churn out - if not seasonal, then annual - collections of designer-cut covers for Blackberrys, GPS units, iPods and other MP3 players, and more complex multi-pocket hand, brief, courier and saddle bags for laptops. A Louis Vuitton iPod cover is hot, a handmade Hermes Blackberry cover even hotter, because everybody knows (don't they?) that Hermes doesn't stock off-the-shelf BlackBerry covers; you must have it designed and made by the brand's bespoke artisan.
One of the most coveted "frocks'' at last month's Australian Fashion Week, for instance, was actually a small, black patent leather one: a case cut to fit a BlackBerry. A brace of A-listers, front row at FrisoniFinetti's slick mens wear show, got one each to keep, with a spanking new BlackBerry inside.
This kind of marketing is vital to lift personal technology items and their accessories above the sum of their (essentially simple) parts. It's known as "viral'' marketing, because it starts with one devotee who - so the theory goes - gossips the brand name with a thousand others, who in turn become devotees and gossip to a thousand more, and so on. A good campaign can attach as much fashionable cachet to an item as simple as a phone or an iPod case as it can around the hippest haute couture.
Fashion's flirtation with technology also plunges a little deeper on rare occasions, but so far the results have been so exclusive that they exclude most of us. Ermenegildo Zegna, for instance, sells a jacket made of fabric that will provide solar power to the iPod in its pocket; the Emporio Armani Sportbike, launched in 2006, has an MP3 holder built into its flat-moulded handlebars; Italian brand Paul and Shark sells a waterproof, windproof jacket with wiring linked between a wrist control pad and iPod; Calvin Klein designer Italo Zucchelli used fabrics that changed colour with body heat; and a team from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta recently reported great strides had been made towards a zinc oxide-coated fabric that could power personal technology as you move.
In 2006, a limited edition of Levi's Redwire DLX jeans sold out at $600 a pop. The first streetwear styled for iPod, they featured a "docking cradle'' in a side pocket, a "joystick'' four-way remote controller and a retractable headphone unit. Oakley sells sunglasses with Bluetooth connectivity, and recently launched "JK15 Split Thump'' with a built-in MP3 player exclusively wired to play songs only by Jamiroquai (yours for just $499.95!).
Where fashion and technology have fused more efficiently - and affordably - is in practical clothes with carrying and strapping add-ons to accommodate personal hand-helds. Fashion brand Running Bare, for example, sells a zip-front hoodie with an iPod pocket on one sleeve, and earphone holes to connect through the hood. It's chic, practical, terribly fashionable and, at $75, affordable. Just as fash'n'tech should be.
First published by TheAge.com.au on November 07 2008
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