BRAND FEATURE

ALPHA TAURI — BRAND FEATURE

FUTUREWEAR

Alpha Tauri has been producing clothing that blurs the boundaries between technological innovation and fashion since 2016. Always at the focus: high functionality and smart features. The independent fashion label, which belongs to energy drink giant Red Bull, takes its inspiration from the early days of the brand and creates unique and original products that the world has never seen before.

TEXT RENÉE DIEHL

This year, Alpha Tauri is continuing its innovative approach, which has been a key strategy for the brand ever since it was launched. But they’re not just innovative when it comes to their products: for the first time, Alpha Tauri is launching a hybrid campaign that combines virtual and real-life elements. Ahmet Mercan, CEO of Alpha Tauri, explains this step as follows: “Our goal is always to create a flowing transition between the digital and the physical worlds.” This fusion also aims to highlight the premium fashion brand’s strategic positioning.

HYBRID CAMPAIGN

To produce the hybrid campaign, they used ‘Unreal Engine’ technology, which, until now, has been used mainly in the fields of film and gaming. The technology enables you to create completely digital three-dimensional backgrounds on LED walls in a studio, which Alpha Tauri then used as a backdrop to shoot actual items from the collection on real models. This resulted in an entirely new visual experience that, according to Mercan, “really conveys the tech aspect of the brand” – because the products from the collection stand out with their technical features, which really sets Alpha Tauri apart on the premium clothing market.

BREATHABLE AND WATERPROOF

Alpha Tauri’s hybrid campaign is divided into three parts that each highlight one of the company’s special textile technologies. The first part of the campaign focuses on the Taurobran technology, which was mainly incorporated into the brand’s summer 2022 collection. It was developed in cooperation with textile innovation experts and combines comfort and breathability with waterproof properties. Taurobran can be found in a variety of garments in the collection, such as parkas and jackets, as well as blazers, sweatshirts and trousers. With this, Alpha Tauri is demonstrating one of its core skills, which, according to CEO Ahmet Mercan, lie mainly in the outerwear sector.

Our goal is always to create a flowing transition between the digital and the physical worlds.

KNITWEAR EXPERTISE

But Mercan assures us that it’s not just outerwear that is a core area of their expertise, but also their 3D-knit technology, which comes to the fore in the second part of their hybrid campaign. Their 3D knitwear is made with 3D knitting machines belonging to Japanese company Shima Seiki, one of Alpha Tauri’s strategic partners. Thanks to its seamless circular knitting tech-

What is real? The hybrid campaign seamlessly merges two worlds

nology, it saves up to 30 percent of yarn because there are no off-cuts or waste – a welcome sustainable approach to production. It also has other additional product and design advantages, including the on-demand production of seamless 3D knitwear designs. Individual collection items can be produced with a variety of different yarns like merino and cashmere wool, as well as performance yarns. All of the brand’s knitwear products are made in Europe.

STAYING WARM IN WINTER

Part three of the hybrid campaign is centred on the ‘Heatable Capsule Collection 2.0’. Alpha Tauri already launched a line of heatable outerwear styles last year and is building on this success in the second part of their capsule collection. As Ahmet Mercan explains: “We’re launching a second edition of our Heatable Capsule Collection this autumn, which we developed in cooperation with Deutsche Telekom and Schoeller Textil AG. There will be a unisex commuter jacket as well as a trench coat for women and men, each one controlled via app.” Here too, Alpha Tauri is showing its innovativeness and prescience as a response to the field of smart wearables becoming an increasingly hot topic in fashion. An app allows the wearer to control the warmth of their jacket exactly to their own needs – with two heating zones in the pockets and kidney area and four different heat settings. The Schoeller E-Soft-Shell heating technology, as it is called, is woven directly into the fibres, which are made of a heat-retaining, sheep wool filling (Lavalan), along with an isolation layer of cork granules (corkshell) and a heat-conducting lining (E-Soft-Shell). An integrated battery ensures that there is enough energy to keep you cosy, finished off with a water-repellent membrane to protect both the wearer and the technology.

EXPANSION INTO THE VIRTUAL WORLD

But Alpha Tauri’s expansion into the virtual world doesn’t stop at this year’s hybrid campaign concept. For the latest F1 race in Miami, they have been working on an exciting art project with artist Jay Bellicchi, who goes by the pseudonym of Remote. He designed graffiti for one of the F1 show cars that was inspired by the Alpha Tauri SS22 collection. Two of the racing drivers also came up with a graffiti design for their own helmets. The helmets were then digitalised as NFTs and can be bought as one-offs on Alpha Tauri’s website. The profits from the project will be donated to the ‘Wings For Life’ charitable foundation. In this field, too, Alpha Tauri is merging physical and virtual elements into one – perfectly reflecting the brand’s innovation ambitions.