Cover of Back to the Future
In the 1985 movie Back to the Future, the filmmakers had to try and predict what may or may not be possible for the foreseeable future and to give the film a feel-real quality, whilst keeping the fun and entertainment levels high.
In the film, the year 2015 is the year of the flying car, hover shoes, hover boards, adjusting and auto-drying jackets and even a female president.
Whilst many of those ideas were fun and humorous, Back to the Future is, after all a film and back then it seemed difficult to imagine a world changing so much in a relatively short time.
Fast forward to the present
It is then, quite amazing to see just how quickly the world has advanced and people all over the world are quite at home with new technology, in fact becoming quite obsessed with it. These days everyone is a gadget geek.
Where would we be without smartphones, tablets, 3D games consoles, Blue-ray players, dongles, portable hard-drives and these are just a few of the items, we now describe as essential to our daily lives.
What is even more exciting is how technology is taking over in every aspect of our lives, the way we interact, spend money, save money, make important announcements, plan our travels, book appointments and more recently, wear our clothes and keep up to date with fashion.
Fashion and technology interactivity is inevitable
What we wear every day speaks volumes, about who we are, what we earn, what we want to express about ourselves and equally what we want to hide about ourselves.
The idea that fashion and technology merge and co-exist shouldnt really be that surprising, considering factors such as climate change, lowering our carbon footprints and the need for convenience in our very busy lives. New technology is usually created because people have a need for something. In effect a problem and scientists, engineers and inventors go and create the solution for us.
We wanted to watch movies that we see in the cinema, in the comfort of our homes. We got DVD players. We want to access music easily and fast. We got mp3s. We want bigger, better, faster, quicker and we want it now!
Engineers, scientists and inventors, work quietly behind a wall that no one talks about until the big product is ready to launch and we accept it into our lives almost as if we were expecting it.
Today we can
- Update our Facebook status via our jeans
- Spray fabric from a can to create a unique and individual garment
- Receive email, messages and weather alerts via an interactive paper watch
- Coat our shoes and outer garments in a liquid that repels water and refined oils
- Use suitcases that are both lightweight, high fashion and impact resistance, such as the Samsonite cosmolite case.
- Use our clothes as real game controllers
And all because we want it, demand it and if its not there or available, we want to know why.
Although relatively new, wearable technology will increase in popularity and become the norm, just as watching TV from a mobile phone has become the norm and heating specially packed food in an electronic oven, has become the norm.