Skip to main content
The Web    CNN.com      Powered by
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
SERVICES
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
SEARCH
Web CNN.com
powered by Yahoo!
Technology

Digital fashions on the horizon

By Julie Clothier for CNN

story.fashion.jpg
We will all be able to look like catwalk models in the future, in the virtual world at least.
SPECIAL REPORT
• Prototype: $100 Laptop
• Design365: Forthcoming events
Click here for showtimes and all the latest news from the world of design.
YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS
Design 360
Fashion

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Virtual tattoos, electronically activated make-up and digital bathroom mirrors are just some of the gadgets that could become commonplace in the fashion world of the future.

BT futurologist Ian Pearson, who is speaking at the London College of Fashion this month about the potential for "interrogating fashions," told CNN that technology was beginning to interact with the fashion world.

He said in a few years time, people would appear one way in the physical world and have a whole range of digital appearances in the "augmented reality" and virtual worlds, which would become a huge growth area for fashion.

"These new worlds will need to be designed, and fashion will play a similar role to that in the real world," Pearson said.

"At the moment you choose which clothes you want to wear and you look the same to everyone. But there's some people out there for whom you would like them to see you in a different way. You will be able present yourself in different ways to different people using this digital fashion concept."

He said "digital bathroom mirrors" would enable people to program how they wanted to look.

Whether appearing online, playing a multi-player online role-playing game, or in someone's heads-up display, people would be able to customize how they wanted to look, Pearson said.

Electronically activated make-up would change throughout the day, depending on your mood and the circumstances.

"You'd use a digital bathroom mirror and you'd just cursor through a whole stack of different options."

"It can change all the way through the day -- it can even pick up your emotions in that timeframe -- because that's one of the things you can measure electronically.

"Whether you're feeling relaxed or whether you're feeling stressed your make-up will be able to respond to that so you can have completely responsive make-up as part of your future fashion kit."

Skin will also be a fashion accessory in future, Pearson said.

"At the moment you can get tattoos and people do, but we're thinking it's not really a good time to get a tattoo -- if you wait five or six years you can get video tattoos, which will be removable."

He said emotionally responsive jewelry and clothes was also likely, whereby what we wear could monitor our state of well being and react accordingly.

Although some ideas sounded futuristic and a long way off, Pearson believed they would become a reality.

"The technology will be available. Whether they actually make it or not comes down to whether the people who are capable of making these things believe the market is big enough," he said.

"It's always guess work but if you look at something like digital make-up, all the women I talk to about it think, 'Wow, when can we get it?'" he said.


Story Tools
Subscribe to Time for $1.99 cover
Top Stories
Burgers, lattes and CD burners
Top Stories
CNN/Money: Security alert issued for 40 million credit cards
Search JobsMORE OPTIONS


 

International Edition
CNN TV CNN International Headline News Transcripts Advertise With Us About Us
SEARCH
   The Web    CNN.com     
Powered by
© 2005 Cable News Network LP, LLLP.
A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved.
Terms under which this service is provided to you.
Read our privacy guidelines. Contact us.
external link
All external sites will open in a new browser.
CNN.com does not endorse external sites.
 Premium content icon Denotes premium content.
Add RSS headlines.