Archive for December, 2009

fabric, fashion and innovation: the future of fashion

by MPDClick on December 30, 2009 in Future with No comments

With so many advances in fabric technology in recent years, why is the fashion industry living in the dark ages? The potential to revolutionize clothing is unlimited so why hasn’t the market caught up with the prospects of smart cleaning, adjustable sizing garments and much more.  Here at Mpdclick we have come across an article by Yuli Ziv, co-founder and Editor-In-Chief of My It Things-a leading user generated fashion magazine and community launched in early 2007-that illustrates these exciting new concepts in technology.

Futuristic fabrics:

1. Colour Changing Clothes – one of the latest inventions in the field of light emitting devices might change the way clothes are designed. Due to the fact that the organic light emitting devices are very thin and flexible, electronic display screens could be easily created on nearly every material, thus, for example, clothing could, for the first time in history, display specific electronic information. There are various ways of using the OLED, like for example change the color of clothes. Imagine what this could potentially mean for the trend forecasting companies who come up with the color palettes every season, designers who choose from those palettes and finally consumers who have a hard time to decide which colors to buy every season.

2. Wired Clothing – this isn’t completely new concept, mostly explored so far by sport apparel companies such as NIKE and Burton, and the health industry for monitoring heart rate, such as Sensatex SmartShirt. There is still a huge future for the “wearable computing” built directly into our clothing. Who knows, maybe in the future our clothes will automatically come with multiple USB outlets, just like our notebooks have today.

3. Body Temperature Balancing Clothes. Our body’s temperature naturally changes throughout the day so why shouldn’t our clothing?   Outlast Adaptive Comfort products are storing excess heat as it’s created and releasing it as it’s needed, so you can do whatever you are doing longer. Nano-Tex Coolest Comfort – gives you the freedom to move from hot to cold environments and still feel dry, all day long. Its advanced moisture wicking keeps you cool without changing the way your clothes feel. These inventions may potentially eliminate the need for seasonal clothing.

Futuristic Care:

4. Smart Cleaning – the laundry machines definitely made our lives easier, but still require special installation and access to water, not to mention the ruining of fabrics after multiple washes.  TheNaturewash by Zhenpeng Li is a true futuristic laundry system. It’s a waterless washer that cleans nano-coated fabric clothes using negative ions. Imagine simply spreading your clothes on the machine surface to get rid of dirt, instead of today’s laundry process.

5. Instantly Dry Clothes – swimwear that dries itself instantly is not a dream anymore, thanks to Sun Dry Swim, which features quick dry nanotechnology enhanced swimwear fabric that sheds water as naturally as skin. It’s only a matter of time until this technology will make it into apparel making the rainy days much less wet, not to mention eliminating the need for driers.

6. Odor Preventing Fabrics – one of the reasons for frequent clothes wash is the non-pleasant odors they catch. Japanese company Teijin is known for applying cutting edge technologies to textiles, develops a wide range of solutions, including the anti-bacterial odor preventing functions.Carnation Footcare has launched silver-lined socks it claims keep feet warm and smelling of roses. Pure silver, which coats the outside of the textile fibres, kills bacteria and neutralizes nasty odor-causing elements.

7. Stain Resistant Fabrics – there are plenty of stain removers on the market today, but what if the fabric itself wasn’t even able to catch stains? Nano-Tex, a leading fabric innovation company providing textile enhancements to the apparel market, recently rolled out the market’s best-performing stain repel-and-release treatment. The new solution threatens to eliminate the need for the most innovative stain remover.

8. Wrinkle Resistant Fabrics – who doesn’t like perfectly ironed crisp looking clothes? The process of ironing did improve our clothes appearance, but is tedious and doesn’t produce long lasting effect. A new technique allows the garments to be treated with the anti-wrinkle finish before the garment is dyed. This chemical treatment minimizes wrinkles and gives a smooth appearance to the fabrics. Hopefully, the day we say goodbye to the old heavy irons will be soon over.

Futuristic Wear:

9. Shape Changing Clothes – perhaps the “Airplane dress” by Hussein Chalayan looked too futuristic, but the concept itself of shape changing clothes isn’t as far from our reality. Imagine a skirt that could change from A-line to pencil shape in a click of a button. The simplified version of this concept includes convertible garments such as dress that becomes a skirt, coat that becomes a jacket, two-sided garments – the opportunities for innovative multi-functional garments are endless.

10. Detachable Elements – another innovative way to use materials effectively is detachable elements of clothing and accessories. OneSole are an example of shoes with interchangeable tops, which could be attached to the same sole. Similar concept was also recently explored by the Uniform Project, where a black dress is worn with different accessories to create multi functional looks. Although this wasn’t an actual product, it’s only a matter of time until we’ll see a branded version of this concept.

11. Size Adjustable Clothes – a bonus idea, yet to be invented, but has the potential to change the fashion world as it solves the biggest problem in mass clothing manufacturing – the unique shape of each human body. Size adjustable shoes are today’s reality, although haven’t been hugely penetrated in the market. Imagine what size adjustable clothes could do – a fabric that is “learning” the curves of your body and adjusts accordingly, by that eliminating the need of multiple sizes. I wonder if any inventors out there are tackling the issue.

These ideas might sound too futuristic for mass market integration, but with the decreased costs of new technologies they will become standard in apparel industry in the next few years. Pressured by the economy, fashion designers and brands are so busy these days thinking about the next season, while in fact they should be thinking about the next decade. If our clothes could be compared to computers, we are still wearing DOS…

Image source: tiare

textiles: hugo & marie collaboration

by MPDClick on December 29, 2009 in Uncategorized with No comments

Hugo & Marie, a New York Creative Consultancy and Artist Management Agency, have created an online boutique on their website as a platform to curate and promote the development of their artists and to share objects and projects with design fans.

Collaborating with a select group of creatives, they have designed a collection of 100% silk scarves. The illustrations and collages of the artists including the work of Micha Lidberg, Benbo George, Deanne Cheuk, and Anna Giertz are turned into wearable art. Based on themes such as ‘Love & Sex & Women’ and ‘Anyhow Summertime’ all scarves are custom printed and made  in the United States using eco-friendly dyes.

Image source: hugoandmarie.com

culture: plans afoot to put la at the centre of world culture

by MPDClick on December 29, 2009 in Future with No comments

As far as many Angelinos are concerned their city is already a must for culture – it is just that no one else has noticed yet. Los Angeles is the only city on earth that has a dynamic, ongoing dialogue between contemporary art and entertainment. In the performing arts for example, no one has a greater symphony hall of orchestra than they do; LA has great opera and more theatrical productions than even London or New York!
As a well-cultured city, Los Angeles naturally offers a staggering amount of both inspirational and educational major museums; MOCA, The Natural History Museum, California Science Museum and The Grammy Museum to name a few. But LA also has an array of ‘off the beaten track’ museums, so much so that even some locals are unaware of their existence. These hidden treasures vary in ‘what’s on show’; some traditional in topic, whilst others show case alternative and off-the-wall ideas. Either way you can’t help but be completely engrossed. An interesting concept is the Museum of Neon Art. Once considered ‘wacky’ it has recently become one of LA’s most unique experiences. There’s also the museum of Jurassic Technology, the little known Travel Town Museum and of course, nothing is more alternative than Pasadena’s Bunny Museum; the largest collection of rabbit collectibles in the world!
Los Angeles also has it’s very own fashion week; Originally established in 2003 with ‘Mercedes Benz Fashion Week’ (as well as New York) hosted at Smash Box Studios being the key attraction. However this year (2009) the original format was replaced by a dazzling line up of key fashion events at venues across LA. It also featured ‘Passion…Revealed’, an original event featuring both established and up-and-coming fashion designers: Their website states it is “an artistic celebration…spotlighting pure talent and ingenuity.”
This, with the arrival of GlobalTex, a fabric trade show held at the LA Convention Centre dedicated to ‘translating trends into business’ strengthens LA’s deep rooted interest and promotion of the fashion industry within the state. Los Angeles is also, arguably, the world’s most important denim industry being home to the trend service ‘Denimhead’ and a raft of edgy designers and hot stores such as Fred Segal and the vintage outlet American Rag.  
Outside LA People need to look beyond beaches and Disney Land to see the creative potential of a city in need of promoting its creative talent!
Image source: www.guardian.co.uk

cinema: video games as movies

by MPDClick on December 28, 2009 in Uncategorized with No comments

Mpdclick recently reported on a rise in films taking their cue from comic books.  Well, the desire for escapism continues as now it appears to be the turn of video games for the spotlight.  More and more films inspired by the beloved modern pasttime of video gaming are given the “big screen treatment”, giving us all an excuse to retreat from reality into the fantastical world of heroes & monsters.  Although the games have already begun with the likes of ‘Tekken’ (released on November 5th), 2010 could be considered the year of the gamer as game and film fanatics can expect to see the majority (if not all) of the video-game-inspired film appear in their local cinema listing starting in May next year.  The game fest picks up speed with the release of ‘Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time’ on May 28th, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, based on the video game of the same name, the film tells the tale of an adventurous prince and a rival princess who set out to stop a crazed monarch from destroying the world.
Game designer. American McGee’s twisted take on the classic fairytale ‘Alice in Wonderland’, is set to be brought to the big screen with the title ‘Alice’, which is rumoured to star Sarah Michelle Gellar (known for her role in as Buffy in the T.V. series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) as the main character Alice who was committed to a mental institution after her first venture to Wonderland and has now been given the chance to return and fight the residents of Wonderland and the Queen of Hearts.   In another world, humankind is under threat (as usual) from the Locust Horde on the planet of Sera and the best hope of survival lies with a former prisoner-of-war (P.OW.) and a team of brave soldiers who set out to save civilization.  This is the plot for the film ‘Gears of War’, which is based on a third player shooter game developed by Epic Games and published by Microsoft Game Studios.
There are four movies in particular that gamers are sure to be on tented hooks for: ‘Bioshock’, ‘Resident Evil: Afterlife’, ‘Dead Space’ and ‘Mass Effect’.  ‘Bioshock’ sees the main character, Jack, exploring an underwater city and trying his best to survive the attacks of the mechanical drones and mutated creatures that dwell there, while Resident Evil: Afterlife is the third sequel to the 2002 film Resident Evil, and stars Mila Jovovich as part of a special military unit out to stop an out-of-control super-computer and a horde of scientists that have turned into flesh-eating, zombie-like creatures.  Due out in 2011, Dead Space is “set in 26th century deep space where an engineer who responds to a distress signal from a mining ship finds the vessel infested with monstrous creatures called Necromorphs.”
Last but by no mean least is ‘Mass Effect’ (2012).  The game chronicles the efforts of a futuristic soldier to save humankind and the film is set to bring this story to live-action.
The common theme among these films (bar ‘Alice’) is humankind’s instinct to fight when their survival is threaten – a theme which is sure to become increasingly popular and inventively explored with the looming 2012 theories.  

lifestyle: working nine to five- the best way to make a living?

by MPDClick on December 23, 2009 in Uncategorized with No comments

Mudpie’s lifestyle analysts have noticed a recent media interest in the future of the traditional nine-to-five work pattern. In his book The Future of Work, Richard Donkin discusses a silent revolution in social behaviour that is effecting the modern workplace. Social research suggests that technology, the recession and the reshuffling of domestic priorities as has transformed the way we work in the traditional sense. According to Donkin, our lifestyles are “more varied and less conventional” than ever before with many of us striving to achieve the perfect work-life balance.  

In contrast to former generations there are now considerably more single parent employees juggling caring with earning. Moreover the necessity of having two employed earners in a family has created the need for more job shares and flexible hours. Interestingly it is not only the restructuring of the modern family unit that has affected the workforce. The Trades Union Congress reports the demand for a better work life balance is “across-the-board” rather than just limited to those needing to choose flexibility to accommodate caring responsibilities.

Naturally the global recession has been a contributing factor to changing work patterns. Countless redundancies, job losses and career changes have in-turn created opportunities for employees to re-think their working life with many opting for more variety. This may mean having various jobs which are carried out according to the individuals personal schedule e.g. estate agent by day and nail manicurist on the weekend. Consequently forecasters predict that the traditional CV as a platform for employment will soon be replaced by a portfolio of work which allows more room for variety and elaboration.   

Another aspect to consider is the fact that more people are travelling and working abroad. The appeal of the office-less job is particularly suitable for those working in creative industries, teaching and consulting which can be performed online using a laptop whether they are located on a beach in Thailand or a coffee house in London.

Here at Mudpie, lifestyle analysts have recognized a renewed emphasis on the concept of “quality of life” as an ethos for today’s working world. Consequently, negotiating flexible working patterns will become a key collective bargaining issue for employers and trade unions. Generally the demand for flexible working patters by both workers and employers is set to gather pace in the coming years and will play a greater role in the employment relationship.

Image source: stockxpert.com

pr & marketing: communication is still king – even in the online world

by MPDClick on December 22, 2009 in Uncategorized with No comments


With Christmas shopping well underway and reports of not one but two ‘Manic Mondays’ in online retail, it is time to remind everyone that convenience and great offers are not enough – today’s savvy customers need more than a transactional website.

Last Monday alone, the UK’s cybershoppers spent £300 million – making it the busiest day for online shopping so far this year.  Demonstrating the enormous growth within this avenue due to improved security, faster broadband speed and of course, ease of purchase.

But how much more can online retail grow? As we know through so many other industries, communication is what seals the deal and the question is – how much further can online services expand without addressing their communication options?

In a recent Deloitte survey, 61 percent of people said they would like more flexible shopping services, such as being able to buy online and collect in-store. Proving customers appreciate the benefits of purchasing online but still expect the same service as in-store. 

I myself have experienced an account of poor online service just this week. An Occurrence that would certainly of not happened in-store. I ordered a few Christmas presents and the service was great, website was user-friendly and overall, ticked the boxes. I then found that I was charged twice and found two identical parcels at my door! Yes, I understand mistakes happen, but when there was not a free returns envelope in the parcel, I was unimpressed. My time to take it back to the post office combined with the cost of returning it does not make me want to rush back and spend my money. Clearly there is a need for innovation here.

Admittedly, most of the retail giants have made a start by grabbing social media at the reins and integrating it into their communications strategy. Marks and Spencer for example has over 100,000 fans on its Facebook page and uses it to engage with customers. Twitter is another example of how social media is being used for customer service; ASOS have several ‘Help’ accounts that are monitored for feedback. Both are excellent sources of communication for customers. But there are still gaps in their communications online.

I think the key point here is the need for retailers to align their offline policies with their online. The fact that I’ve always had great service in store does not stick in my mind when I’m experiencing poor service online.  

technology & fashion: umbrellovations

by MPDClick on December 21, 2009 in Uncategorized with No comments

New innovative designs using umbrellas are proving that the wet weather essential can be used for anything from a fashion accessory to architectural design. The original idea of the umbrella has not been forgotten in the designs however, each of the designs are still functional, as well as being fun and creative. The designs range from an inflatable cloud umbrella, umbrella hats, umbrella dresses, weapons, chandeliers, handsfree umbrellas, golf clubs and even umbrellas fitted with speakers. The need to incorporate practicality and fashionable design, yet still ensuring the quality of the design is not compromised, is increasing in popularity as people’s desire to only purchase products when truly necessary grows. 

Image source: trendhunter.com: christina butty

fashion: look of the week

by MPDClick on December 18, 2009 in Uncategorized with No comments

This week’s style musing has been found on the delectable streets of Amsterdam, picturesquely set on one of the cities renowned canals. The staple black coat has contemporary detailing such as zipped raglan panelling and short cape like sleeves, an unusual design that will retain quirky style for seasons to come. An oversized bow is perfectly co-ordinated with the leather bow feature on her bag while her on trend over-the-knee red suede boots highlight the classic choice of vixen red lipstick.

cutting edge physics; now available in pop-up format

by MPDClick on December 18, 2009 in a/w 11/12 with No comments

Voyage to the Heart of Matter, is a new pop-up book about the science of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC), focusing on the ATLAS experiment. Now readers of all ages can join the ATLAS Experiment on this fascinating journey to the beginnings of the universe.

In this unique collaboration between ATLAS and renowned paper engineer Anton Radevsky, 7000 tonnes of metal, glass, plastic, cables and computer chips leap from the page in miniature pop-up, to tell the story of CERN’s quest to understand the birth of the universe.

In December 2009, thousands of physicists around the world cheered as CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) smashed together subatomic particles at the highest energies ever reached by a human-made accelerator and the giant ATLAS detector. A gigantic digital camera examined the millions of collisions per second and identified which ones should be stored and analyzed in more detail.

Together LHC and ATLAS launched a new era of discovery about how the universe works.

The project goals are just as awe-inspiring: probe the structure of space to search for extra dimensions, identify and study why matter has mass in the universe, and even explore theories that connect subatomic particles to the cosmos through dark matter and dark energy.

“This is it,” said Nigel S. Lockyer, director of TRIUMF, Canada’s national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics that led Canadian involvement in the project. “We are at the edge of what we know and are boldly stepping forward: we are now doing physics that has never been done before! It’s amazing…”

The UK edition of the book is published by Papadakis.

fashion: maths + science = shoes

by MPDClick on December 17, 2009 in a/w 11/12 with No comments

Brazilian, footwear and accessory design student Andreia Chaves is Mpdclick’s latest ‘one to watch’ having captured our attentions with her astounding, part-art, part math, footwear creations. The Sao Paulo born up-and-comer, currently based in Italy, is due to graduate in February 2010. Amazingly she is already making waves in the design industry with her imaginative shoes.

We particularly love the mathematical approach she applies to design, best seen in the ‘Invisible Shoes’ (pictured), a dazzling pair of futuristic shoe boots. The design features fragmented asymmetric mirrors that cast beguiling optical reflections of the wearers’ surroundings. The ‘Prism Shoes’ continue in Chaves scientific vision utilizing origami techniques to create 3-D prisms that cast delightful dancing shadows on the ground as you walk.

The calculated, mathematical methods celebrated by the former graphic designer hint at a future demand for scientific innovation across the fashion industry. This ethos is a primary reference for ‘Innovate’, one of Mpdclicks forecast trends for autumn/winter 11/12, while the fractal aesthetics nod towards the aesthetics of the ‘Spectrum’ trend direction. These shoes are as yet a mere concept however we are certain the clean aesthetics and innovative approach will influence future retail product ranges.

Image source: cyanatrendland.com

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