STITCH April 2016 - The Tech Issue

no. 29

april 2016 the tech issue

table of contents

03 masthead

10 new age A technicolor look at the best tech accessories.

04 contributors 05 editor’s note 06 pleasures 07 IRL via URL How virtual reality is democratizing fashion

16 a-z: fashion in tech From PayPal to Prada, technology has taken the fashion world by storm. Here, STITCH outlines the most stylishly techy terms you need to know.

20 browser Before there was Safari, there were storefronts. But in 2016, you may be able to have both.

22 dystopia In a galaxy far, far away…. STITCH explored metallic fabrics and space-age prints.

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29 last word Customization in fashion has become mainstream. But one writer argues madeto-order merchandise undermines the art of fashion.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Erica Witte

our was y e? t a h w on ell ph c t s r fi

MANAGING EDITOR Luke Zhang

LG VX6000 that I decorated with pink crystal stick-ons

CREATIVE DIRECTOR & RECRUITMENT CHAIR Sarah Spellings SENIOR EDITOR Lizzey Johnson TREASURER Diana Armacanqui

I had a hippo shaped phone. It was the opposite of the pink RAZR that everyone else had.

DESIGN EDITOR Florence Fu DESIGN TEAM Emily Ash, Manon Blackman, Emmanuel Rockwell, Jason Yuan, Courtney Zhu ONLINE EDITOR Rachel Lefferts

A pre-paid

Nokia

STAFF WRITERS Christian Welch, Rachel Burns, Haley Glazer, Leslie Zhang, Isabel Seidel PRINT PHOTO EDITOR Zack Laurence ONLINE PHOTO EDITOR Alix Kramer PHOTOSHOOT DIRECTOR Beatrice Hagney ASSISTANT PHOTOSHOOT DIRECTOR Jason Yuan STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERS Meghan Harshaw, Sam Schumacher, Katherine Sprengel, Allie Hagen

STYLING TEAM Caroline Bell, Madison Blanchard, Amber Cline, Danielle Cohen, Maddy Kaufman, Hannah Curcio, Olivia Krevoy, Christian Maness, Jessica Onyi, Kathleen Carroll, Evelyn Ma , Tori Latham, Lilly Scheerer

Motorola RAZR in the fabulou s light p ink

MULTIMEDIA EDITOR Emily Kappes MULTIMEDIA TEAM Clare Fisher, Daniela Grava, Zoe Juanitas, Kimberly Hill, Renée Jacoby, Brii Williams

DIRECTOR OF MARKETING Lauren Myers MARKETING TEAM Casey Doherty, Elisa Finol, Lanie Shalek, Jing Wang, Amelia Cornin, Ariel Matluck, Alexandra Mennell

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SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTOR Carolina Diaz SOCIAL MEDIA TEAM Catherine Kang, Wren Hagge DIRECTOR OF EVENTS Amber Cline DIRECTOR OF SPECIAL PROJECTS Steffanee Wang

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contributors

Ariel Matluck Marketing Team Communications Studies

Favorite ‘90s Tech Accessory: Password Journals.

Favorite iPhone App: Kimoji.

Courtney Zhu Designer Journalism Favorite ‘90s Tech Accessory: Tamagotchi.

Favorite iPhone App: Pocket and Evernote.

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Dani Grava Multimedia Team Journalism Favorite ‘90s Tech Accessory: Portable MP3 Player.

Favorite iPhone App: Snapchat.

Haley Glazer Editorial Team Journalism

Megan Harshaw Photographer Journalism

Favorite ‘90s Tech Accessory: Hit Clips.

Favorite iPhone App: The STITCH App!

Favorite ‘90s Tech Accessory: KidPix. Favorite iPhone App: PHHHOTO.

editor’s note

Back in the early 1900s, shopping was a far more glamorous, leisurely and social sport. Ladies would dress to the nines, perch upon lavish couches, sipping champagne while viewing the latest collections from Milan, months after their debut. Today, the typical fashion-obsessed millennial can swipe through runway shows on her smartphone, place a pre-order for a much-coveted item with a simple click, and have it arrive on her doorstep weeks later.

How did we get here? Technology has advanced far beyond our wildest dreams, infiltrating every aspect of our lives. With the advent of the Internet, online shopping has transformed the retail scene in the last few decades. But nothing could have prepared the fashion industry for the boom in tech we’ve witnessed in the past few years.

With the current ease of online ordering, stores may be in jeopardy of declining sales if they cannot adapt to the changing times (much like the whole print magazine versus web debacle). Unfortunately, this adds a whole new layer to the dilemma: fast-fashion. When our favorite couture designers debut a new collection featuring the latest trends, millennials want it --and they want it right now. Companies like Zara and Forever 21 will whip out cheap replicas of the runway designs, stealing sales before designer duds even have a chance to hit the racks. To ameliorate the issue, brands like Rebecca Taylor are shaking up the industry by starting to sell their looks right off the runway (see pg 16). With the introduction of virtual reality, anyone can click-to-buy their favorites right off Gigi Hadid’s back, a privilege previously reserved for front-row staples like Eva Chen and Olivia Palermo.

Some big-name brands are opting out of this new, demanding system.

Beyond the obvious resources required to pull off high-and-fast fashion, technology has watered down the exclusivity of the industry by giving anyone with Internet access a front-row seat. Whether this is a positive or negative transition depends on who you’re asking. For the devout couture consumer, this is clearly the best thing since the Chanel Boy Bag. Even for the average retail customer, the push in technology pays off. The in-store experience, in an effort to compete with online shopping, has completely transformed to enhance customer service (see pg 7).

Whether you’re still clinging onto your flip-phone for dear life or sporting the latest Hermès Apple Watch (see pg. 29), technology will continue to worm its way into our everyday routine and our everyday wardrobe. The future is here—for better or for worse.

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pleasures: stitch picks 3

1. HEADPHONES, SONY Series Studio Headphones, $20 , Amazon 2. CONTOUR PALETTE Too Faced Cocoa Contour, $40, Sephora 3. WATCH, Apple Watch, $299, Apple.com 4. LIPSTICK, Kat Von D Everlasting Liquid Lipstick "Lolita", $20, Sephora

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IRL via URL How Virtual Reality is Democratizing Fashion

BY HALEY GLAZER

In the world of fashion, new is never really new. The art form is based upon references, designers drawing inspiration from past designers, past events, past experiences. For an industry that prides itself on constant change, fashion is surprisingly nostalgic.

Sometimes, however, something comes along to shake the foundations of the fashion world, forcing it to restructure and rework, permanently reshaping the cyclical nature of the industry.

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ince the advent of the Internet, the fashion industry has transformed immensely in leaps and bounds. From Instagram to fashion bloggers to the much loved and recently deceased Style. com, the formerly exclusive and esoteric industry has been democratized, forced to acknowledge the consumer as a legitimate player in the industry, rather than an afterthought.

Now, with the rise of virtual reality technology and the upcoming release of the Facebook-owned Oculus Rift, one of the first consumer-targeted virtual reality headsets ever to hit stores, the industry may be in for its biggest shake-up yet.

This past fall, Rebecca Minkoff became one of the first fashion brands to experiment with virtual reality, filming the Fall 2015 runway show via VR and selling $24 cardboard headsets that accommodate a user’s smartphone on rebeccaminkoff.com. Fans of the brand worldwide could be immersed in the runway experience, perhaps the closest many would ever get to seeing a Rebecca Minkoff show at New York Fashion Week, all with the touch of a button.

“We’re the first fashion brand to democratize access to VR by making it available to our audience at home, or anyone who has a Google

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Cardboard headset,” CEO Uri Minkoff told Racked last fall.

Instead of the countless dollars and hours a fashion buyer or editor must spend on clothing, travel, food and the like to experience a fashion show in New York Fashion Week, the fashion obsessed need only purchase a headset to experience the same show in the comfort of their own homes. In an industry that thrives on exclusivity, this change is significant and groundbreaking, a culmination of years of opening up the closed world of fashion through the power of the Internet, one live-tweet at a time.

Social media and live streaming have already catalyzed a shift towards a more democratic fashion world, giving the average person an inside look at the industry. With virtual reality opening even more doors for worldwide access and engagement in the world of fashion, there’s no telling where these changes will end.

Many designers have already shifted their runway show schedules and designs to accommodate an increasingly consumer-facing industry, gauging consumer response from the Internet and allowing it to inform their decisions. This shift towards increased access is two-sided: giving the faltering fashion industry an invaluable look

at the consumer it is so desperately seeking to please.

For years, live streams of runway shows have provided a way for brands to gather intel on the consumer, collecting data on their favorite looks from each collection.

“The data from streaming shows affects decisions,” Rebecca Minkoff told Racked. “It used to be a oneway path, where it went from designers to buyers. Now the engagement of the consumers matters. When we allow them to be part of the conversation and take their feedback, we get smarter.”

As virtual reality technology develops and becomes more popular, that engagement can only grow. This engagement, however, comes at a price.

Before the Internet, the world of fashion was commanded by epicenters of influence: people and places that had the best clothing, the coolest clique and the most power. We now live in the age of Internet fame, leading to a legion of fashion bloggers and Instagrammers who sit beside the fashion editors and celebrities in the front row, outfitted in clothes they bought online and surrounded by friends they made on Twitter. The Internet, in short, has become a legitimate method of achieving fame, style, and world domination.

Just ask Leandra Medine or Tavi Gevinson.

Although this shift towards

democracy in fashion is exciting and beneficial, it is not without consequences.

The Internet is breaking down industry institutions one at a time, leaving everything from fashion magazines to brick-andmortar stores covered in rubble and JavaScript.

Virtual reality is sure to only accelerate the demolition.

becomes increasingly economical and interactive, many consumers are choosing Internet shopping over a trip to the mall. Additionally, the sheer cost of technology is causing many shoppers to favor cheap, fast-fashion stores such as Forever 21 or H&M, which sell trendy designer knockoffs at a fraction of the price,

week experience, complete with an Uber ride between shows. The video challenges the use of the world “reality” in virtual reality, however, when animated illustrations done by Jae Suk Kim, an illustrator who has worked with brands from Cartier to Louis Vuitton, take to the runway to give the viewer their best strut.

"THE INTERNET, IN SHORT, HAS BECOME A LEGITIMATE METHOD OF ACHIEVING FAME, STYLE, AND WORLD DOMINATION." Journalism was the first to be hit by the proliferation of social media and the Internet. With fashion show live streams readily available to anyone with a WiFi connection and models and fashion designers interacting with fans directly through their Instagrams, Twitters and Snapchats, the modern day fashion magazine seems almost obsolete.

Similarly, many previously monolithic American brands such as J. Crew, Gap, and Abercrombie & Fitch are shuttering stores at a rapid rate. As online shopping

over heritage brands. The Internet has accelerated the already rapid pace of consumerism, leaving the fashion industry to catch up.

The magic of VR, then, comes not from allowing people to get the experience of being in the front row of a fashion show, but to give them something that even the people in the front row don’t get to see.

A great example of this is in Mirror to the Soul, a VR piece created in conjunction with Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia, which gives the viewer the full fashion

Fashion is paradoxical, an industry that thrives in constant change while dwelling constantly on the past. Virtual reality is equally enigmatic. Just as VR seeks to give the viewer the experience closest to reality, it also allows for a truly surreal experience.

Both tread a fine line between oxymoron and hypocrite, confusing and delighting everyone in their path. The question is not whether either entity while survive, but rather, what happens next?

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new age age

PHOTOGRAPHER: ALLIE HAGEN MODELS: AMALA GARG & DANIELA VALENTINA RODRIGUEZ MAKE UP: AMBER CLINE, CHRISTIAN MANESS, MADISON BLANCHARD HAIR: HANNAH CURCIO AND MADDY KAUFMAN SET ASSISTANT: LILLY SCHEERER

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Headphones: Beats by Dre APRIL 2016 •

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Headphones: Frends

Watch: Hermès for Apple

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A

Z to

fashion in tech

By The STITCH Writers

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aB

Boston's Museum of Fine Arts debuted its #techstyle exhibit on March 6. Featuring key pieces from designers such as Alexander McQueen and Mary Katrantzou, visitors will also have the opportunity to see specially commissioned pieces made with technologies including light and sound reactivity, 3D printing, kinematics and laser cutting.

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Custom Brands like Maison Labiche are allowing everyday people to be the designers, officially making design-your-own style actually stylish.

Df g H# Smartphone apps, like Made-to-Measure and Villoid, are enhancing the consumer shopping experience at the click of a button.

Technology-only dressing rooms are digitalizing employees, so that shoppers never have to wander the store in wrongly-sized samples for their sales associate again.

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Everlane The San Francisco-based brand has radicalized the way we shop online by using their online-only retail strategy to slash profit margins. Because of this, customers can shop their J.Crew quality basics at Zara prices.

Gifs These mesmerizing "moving photos" are the perfect way to convey a lot of information in a short amount of time. It's no wonder they have been used in ad campaigns from Miu Miu to Forever 21.

Fast Fashion The increasing rate of apparel production has dramatically reduced the lifespan of collections... which has dangerous implications for the luxury segment. (Read more about it in our Last Word on page 31).

Successful hashtag campaigns generate plenty of buzz -- #mycalvins attracted millions of new followers to Calvin Klein's social media accounts.

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Jenner Aside from being Ăźberfamous on just about every social media platform, the Jenner sisters were among the first celebrities to create an eponymous app.

If you've got it, flaunt it?

Instagram Forget bloggers—the latest crop of the fashion famous gained their massive followings solely by posting style shots on the app. Not to mention, the best make thousands of dollars per photo when featuring a single product.

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Laser cutting This technique uses lasers to create intricate, precise and lace-like designs on everything from leather and silk to cotton and neoprene. Marchesa, Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs are just a few of several designers who have used laser cutting, which allows for extremely accurate cuts without ever touching the fabric.

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Nasty Gal This online retailer used the power of social media to become one of fast-fashion's most sought-after retailers, named "Fastest Growing Retailer" by INC Magazine only 6 years after its founding.

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Kate Spade No designer's tech accesories are more recognizable or than Kate Spade's ubiquitous stripes and brights on everything from laptop sleeves to phone cases.

Online shopping is quickly overtaking brick-and-mortar stores, forcing many store closures in recent years as the Internet becomes the quickest, easiest and cheapest place to shop.

Made to Measure The new fashion network puts stylish documentaries, runway shows and original content literally in the palm of your hand.

p 3-d printing This innovation may well "create a whole new powerful product category," according to TechCrunch.

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QR Codes Brands like Calvin Klein and Victoria's Secret have created ad campaigns and other innovative projects using QR codes.

rU

Rebecca Minkoff told Business of Fashion that "women should be the creators, not just the consumers, of our increasingly digital future." Her NYC flagship store features dressing rooms with touch-screen mirrors that allow customers to customize sizes, change lighting and select clothes to be delivered. She even gets a record of everything customers like.

t w vx Yz s

Shipping Gone are the days of exorbitant shipping costs for products that take weeks to arrive. Free, express shipping is the new norm, and for the real deals of online shopping, brands like ASOS give customers unlimited 2-day shipping for a flat $29/year.

VR is bringing the catwalk to your screen, one show at a time.

(Read all about it on page 7).

Tory Burch The designer has found megasuccess in her line of Fitbit bracelets.

Youtube The online video emporium has revolutionized the beauty industry through millionview makeup tutorials.

Uber's service UberRush, which made its debut in October 2015, announced that it will make same-day deliveries for brands like Nordstrom, Rent the Runway and Cole Haan.

Wearables From Fitbits to Apple Watches to Ringlys and more, wearable technology has become fashion's hottest accessory.

Zac Posen The designer was the first to ever create an LED dress, thanks to a high-tech partnership with Google.

Manus X Machina The Met Gala theme for its 2016 Costume institute exhibition, "Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology," will focus on the dichotomy between haute couture and technology, according to Vogue.

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BROWSER Before there was Safari, there were storefronts. But in 2016, you may be able to have both. By Rachel Burns

V

irtual mirrors, digital screens and iPads are some of the technological innovations taking over retail spaces and transforming the in-store shopping experience. With consumers becoming increasingly tech-savvy, the fashion industry is evolving to keep up with the times.

In-store technology is now a huge investment for retailers and a major feature of the modern-day shopping experience. As store environments become more digitalized, retailers have greater opportunities to immerse and engage their customers, as well as to offer instant gratification.

This new reliance on technology blurs the line between in-store and online shopping as customers receive similar experiences through both mediums. The in-store experience becomes much less personal as interactive mirrors, screens and tablets can provide customers with everything they might need. Sales associates are equipped with iPads; all a store needs is sophisticated and innovative technology.

Retailers all across the price spectrum have adopted advanced technology, attracting the attention of both the media and consumers. Burberry, Kate Spade, Topshop, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s and Ralph Lauren are some of the most notable retailers taking part in the omnichannel revolution.

Burberry has implemented one of the most talked about digital transformations, the likes of which started eight years ago by former CEO Angela Ahrendts, who now leads the retail team at Apple. The luxury brand has integrated technology throughout every aspect of its stores, in order to mimic the online shopping experience, Burberry executives said. Each clothing item has an RFID chip on its tag that can be scanned on the interactive fitting room mirrors, turning the mirrors into screens that display runway footage, facts and other videos about that specific item. Each sales associate is equipped with iPads that are used to create personally tailored shopping experiences with profiles for each 20

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customer, including their purchase history and size preferences.

Bloomingdale’s has fully embraced technology in its Palo Alto, CA, location--a fully mobile store, with customer-friendly technology utilized throughout the store to make the experience more efficient, according to the retailer’s press release. Innovations include smart fitting rooms with tablets where customers can look up product information and alternate size/color options, mobile devices for all sales associates in which they can call or text customers, access product information, and carry out transactions, and tablets in each department in which shoppers can browse items by designer or style.

Nina Vaswani, a Californian who studies at Vanderbilt, said this Bloomingdale’s location is the first place she goes to shop when she’s home. Out of all the in-store technology, she raves about the interactive mirrors which have adjustable settings to change the lighting to match the environment you’ll be wearing the clothes in. She said that after using the mirrors at Bloomingdale’s, she wishes more stores had the same technology.

“When I was trying on stuff for work, I put on the office setting and when I was trying on stuff for my brother’s graduation, I put on the outdoor setting,” Vaswani said. “Obviously, it’s not that important but it was fun and it also makes you consider the practicality of the clothes and where you will be wearing them so I really like that.”

Topshop has partnered with YR to create a personalized shopping experience in some of its stores through the implementation of interactive design stations. All you have to do is go up to one of the screens, design your own garment, and wait for it to be instantly printed from large-scale digital printers that use special ink and heat presses that speed along the printing process. This technological addition lets each shopper become a designer–creating anything from t-shirts to leggings with any graphic you can imagine.

Such innovations minimize the role of the sales as-

sociate, as shoppers can shop efficiently without ever needing assistance.

All of this in-store technology engages shoppers in a way that makes the experience easier and more immediate. Such traits are greatly appreciated in the increasingly-instant world, in which you can buy anything with one click on your laptop or mobile device. These features also give the consumer full control of his/her shopping experience, without much reliance on sales associates.

“

same experience online, why would they physically drag themselves to a store? Since consumers can find all information and products online, something must keep them returning to stores. The digital innovations taking over retail stores has the power to attract and engage consumers, but also to halt them from coming to the store instead of shopping online.

One thing that keeps consumers returning to stores is the physical experience of seeing, feeling and trying on clothes. If retailers manage to successfully bring the

THE IN-STORE EXPERIENCE BECOMES MUCH LESS PERSONAL AS INTERACTIVE MIRRORS, SCREENS AND TABLETS CAN PROVIDE CUSTOMERS WITH EVERYTHING THEY MIGHT NEED." While this can improve the in-store shopping experience for consumers, it can also have detrimental effects on the retail industry. The innovations mentioned above minimize the role of the sales associate, as shoppers can shop efficiently without ever needing assistance. What does this mean for the associates?

Are their jobs in danger as digital devices take over their roles? The sales associates are no longer the sole provider of information--they facilitate the information provided to customers by mobile-gadgets.

Moreover, as retailers close the gap between shopping online and in-store, what is going to continue to drive consumers to the store? If consumers can get the

online experience in-store while still retaining some humanized-qualities, customers can get a fully immersive, personalized shopping experience in-stores that they can’t get online.

This technological revolution in the fashion industry is capable of restoring the retail experience as more people turn towards online shopping for efficiency. At the same time, it has the power to destroy the in-store experience if it becomes too digitalized, to the point of it being virtually the same as the online experience. As the impact of technology is fundamentally changing shopping as we know it, we will have to wait and see if it will build up the in-store experience or tear it down.

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dystopia PHOTOGRAPHER: Melissa Cagan MODELS: Gavin Williams, Lauren Adams, and Ariana Moore MAKEUP: Christian Maness, Madison Blanchard, Jessica Onyi, Amber Cline HAIR: Hannah Curcio SET ASSISTANT: Caroline Bell STYLISTS: Amber Cline, Christian Maness and Olivia Krevoy Special thanks to Crossroads Trading Company for providing wardrobe

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Top: Sovereign Code Jeans: Levi's Shoes: Timberland Dress: Manon Boertein Shoes: DSW

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Left to Right: Dress: American Apparel Earrings: Dior Top: Yoana Baraschi Jacket: Helix Pants: Aeropostale Shoes: Timberland 24

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Top: Yoana Baraschi Dress: American Apparel Shoes: Jeffrey Campbell

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Dress: Cameo Shoes: Worthington

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W ST LA D OR

PERSONALIZATION

NATION

I

still have the pictures in the depths of my iPhoto albums.

Pixel-ridden snapshots from my Canon PowerShot of the various dresses I’d construct with yards of vibrant paisley fuschia and lime green fabric back in the 6th grade. I’d drape the textiles into goddess-like dresses on the vintage mannequin my grandma scoured the Garment District for my 12th birthday. I wished that I could wear the creations, but their lack of a zipper closure and the box full of pins needed to keep the waist in place made my designs exist no further than my digital library.

I wanted to be a fashion designer as early as I can remember. My parents encouraged it, so I pursued it. I graduated to designing and constructing leather apparel and accessories by high school—still unsuccessful with a sewing machine—by hand-stitching simple-but-vibrant hued totes from thick hides until my fingers formed calluses. I entered my pieces in art shows and received reassurance—from the excellence honors I earned to the compliments collected when I wore the pieces—to continue with this passion. But as I grew older, and life became bombarded with responsibility, fashion became an overlooked pursuit. I was hit by the stark question of what I wanted to do with my life. Fashion design wasn’t considered “academic enough,” so I hardly could contemplate the profession anymore.

But I learned something invaluable from the hours of attempts I made: It doesn’t take just determination and a steadfastness to make it as a designer; it takes an inherent magic touch that can’t be taught. Couture fashion design is a beyond-admirable pursuit, yet

BY ISABEL SEIDEL

extremely underestimated.

I refocused my efforts towards fashion journalism by college, but when I stepped back from my artistic endeavors and began to write about the fashion industry, my perceptions changed. The classic line from “The Devil Wears Prada”—where Miranda Priestly connects Andy Sachs’ basic lumpy blue sweater back to a cerulean Oscar de Renta gown and Yves Saint Laurent military jacket—became surprisingly relevant. To me, fashion became an intricate enigma that is far more than aesthetic. And with the countless articles I browsed of collaborations, style guides, collections and critiques, I noticed how common it was for accessible big-name brands to adopt a form of “couture appropriation,” per se. Imitation of couture in the clothing we wear is common, but alarmingly uncontested. As consumers, however, we fail to realize that replication of the runways begins to undermine the innovation that couture designers thrive off—a rip-off of this unparalleled “magic touch” couture designers withhold.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but fast fashion is merely copycat fashion, and it undermines [the] essence of the fashion industry. Only within the past year did I realize how much more gratifying it is to purchase a select few exquisite pieces with true artistic worth over masses of cheaply made garments. Yes, copycat fashion is easier, more accessible and more affordable. But it’s not until you hold a high-quality piece in your hands—you feel the luxe fabrics and comprehend each meticulous stitch within the fabric—that you appreciate the quality of a designer garment over it’s discounted replica. Realistically, this doesn’t mean we should idolize unrealistic purchases, from

Birkin bags to Louboutin heels, but rather acknowledge the importance of handcrafted, timeless goods within an industry that supports a culture of machine-made throwaways.

As the world we live in advances, the technology of tomorrow provides an alluring luxury for customers of all demographics.

But the “instant gratifications” that we receive from fast fashion prove to be a danger to the personal shopping experience and the job opportunities within an industry rooted in tradition. Fast fashion outsources valuable jobs and economic opportunities away from craftsmen of couture. Subtle change within the fashion industry is healthy, but transformation from the roots up of an industry built on tradition is dangerous.

From replication to innovation, sometimes it might help to step back and truly appreciate the craftsmanship and intricacies of couture.

Think about how it has shaped your wardrobe today, or even the shirt you wear while you read this last word. Ultimately, the fictional Miranda Priestly could teach us a valuable lesson about how even the simplest pair of jeans you wear can be traced back to the works of designers like Calvin Klein. You can credit Chanel for white jersey t-shirts and little black dresses that sit in your closet right now. Even your white street-sneakers can be traced back to the classic Chuck Taylor All-Stars from the turn of the 20th century. The fashion industry is an immeasurable space, but like everything, it starts small. It starts with a single idea from a single designer, who has the magic touch to make an image in his or her mind more than a mere idea, or more than a mere picture in the depths of an iPhoto album.

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“

The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative.

It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn't think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential.

- Steve Ballmer

”

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