Virtual fashion, gadget or trending topic? What about tech in dresses or fashion accessories, wishful thinking or real possibility? Second part of our interview with journalist Olivier Levard, specialist in new technologies, on the fashion tech of tomorrow.

By Ludmilla Intravaia

Le Boudoir Numérique : 3D catwalks (more info here), models (more info here), avatars (more info here) and influencers made from pixels (more info here)… virtuality has recently made a big breakthrough in the world of fashion, forced to adapt to confinement and the new constraints of social distancing, generated by the Covid-19 crisis. According to you, does this virtual trend, observed in particular this summer with the online fashion weeks in London, Paris (more info here and there) and Milan (more info here), is likely to last?

Olivier Levard, journalist specialist in new technologies : For me, the 3D fashion model is the virtual star who will replace the top model. The very essence of fashion's creativity is to imagine fantasized creatures, creatures that resemble us near or far and who wear clothes. We manage to design very beautiful virtual characters today, humanoid or not. I have no doubts in fashion's ability to move us with all kinds of incredible creatures. When will we see a magnificent virtual octopus presenting handbags, for example? It can speak to us, touch us, because it's art.

Last May, characters from Nintendo video game Animal Crossing walked the runway of a digital fashion show, sporting the silhouettes of luxury houses (more info here) ...

Ten to fifteen years ago, when the first virtual worlds arrived, some predicted that one would buy virtual products with money. I didn't believe in it and I screwed up. For example, today, Fortnite, the first video game of the moment, is free but players buy skins and accessories to dress their virtual character, which generates millions of euros in profits.

Nicolas Ghesquière, artistic director of Louis Vuitton Women's collections, has also dressed the virtual appearance of the character Qiyana from League of Legends (more info here) ...

Today, video game companies are hiring designers who come from that background, but I am sure that one day you will be abble to make a career in fashion by being a virtual video game designer. What I find particularly interesting is the question of gender and diversity. In a video game, a man can make his virtual avatar wear woman's clothes and give him leopard ears, if he wants. In the virtual world, we do what we want. When we wear fashion in the physical world, we remain trapped in our body, in things that seem unsightly, our pot belly, our hair color, etc. If fashion has the ambition to change our appearance, virtual fashion can go much further, by allowing us to choose who we want to be, in complete freedom. In all great sandbox games (making extensive use of the player's creativity, AN), players have the power to create their hero, in a body shop that offers the possibility of choosing his physical appearance, his size, his gender, ethnicity, sexuality, etc. It's very important for a player to have a character who looks like what he wants. So much finesse is achieved today in some of these body shops that you can recreate just about any human that exists on the face of the planet.

Is it the idea that all bodies are possible?

Yes, including those who are completely removed from what we were at birth. Since fashion is a personal statement of identity, there is no doubt that it will accompany this virtual phenomenon in the long term. We can even imagine that tomorrow, in the physical world, we have less clothes but that they will be more sturdy and sustainable for the environment, while we will do our virtual shopping on the web and change our skin, as often as we change our phone case. I could see myself finally wearing, in the virtual world, all those improbable hats that I buy, on a whim, in real life and that stay in my closet.

All of this brings us to the role of technology and innovation for a more environmentally friendly fashion. What do you think, for example, of 3D printing which allows production using only the strictly necessary materials or of trends forecasting by artificial intelligence to reduce unnecessary waste?

Three years ago, one predicted that 3D printing would be everywhere. It is not. What's great is that it has completely changed prototyping, where it has become widespread, whether it's for fashion or technology objects. On the other hand, I don't think you will ever print your clothes at home. Data, on the other hand, makes it possible to make less mistakes about people's desires and therefore not to produce a collection that will interest no one. It is the most scandalous of waste to create 150,000 pieces of a model that will not sell and go to the trash, for lack of buyers. But as effective as it is, technology cannot solve our tendency to buy anything and everything. At the personal level, we must solve our problem of overconsumption, by changing our priorities in favor of slow fashion. This is the meaning of the question asked by Marie Kondo, whose organizing method echoes the concerns of our time: does this object that I touch in my hands cause me emotion?

Isn't this just one of the reasons why tech has moved closer to luxury, in order to benefit from its emotional capital, especially for connected objects?

Absolutely. This is what Apple did, by partnering with Hermès for the straps of its Watch. But this logic is faced with a major obstacle, namely that technology is outdating itself very quickly, while luxury clothing and accessories, compared to disposable fashion, are destined to last. We keep a luxury watch for years, it even increases in value sometimes. But a phone quickly loses its value the moment you unboxed it, in fact. If I put LEDs in a bag, they'll be outdated the next year, because tech keeps innovating. So, it's very complicated to integrate technology into fashion. This is why a whole fashion segment has developed to decorate our technological objects. Hermès sells magnificent iPad protectors in embroidered fabric for example, all the major luxury manufacturers now make iPhone cases, etc.

So fashion tech is struggling to last in time, is that it?

So far, it's a failure, yes. In pop culture, for example in Spielberg's film A.I, you see old screens, old machines that continue to live on, but in everyday reality, this is not the case. We often speak of planned obsolescence, but there is also an almost psychological obsolescence. We don't like last year's phone anymore, because every year we want to change it. Such is the marketing performance of the high-tech industry. Keeping an old phone makes no sense, since technology is so important in our lives that the functional aspect completely crushes the design aspect. When you buy an iPhone, you also choose it because it is beautiful, but if this iPhone was much less efficient than another phone, its design would not be enough. If an iPhone were six months or a year behind its competition, that would be unacceptable to the consumer. High tech devices age poorly and have no value over time. Aside from maybe the Motorola StarTAC, the first clamshell phone, the first brushed aluminum iPhone, the first gen iPod or some seventies TVs that make beautiful vintage objects, high-tech devices are not found in flea markets. A luxury bag that incorporates a screen, for example, is problematic: How to update the screen? How to change it, when it is broken? Also, if it still works, it doesn't look good, an old screen. This fashion tech bag risks aging very badly.

You don’t believe in screens in our clothes and accessories, like Louis Vuitton's Canvas of the Future then (more info here)?

Yes, I do, for me screen textiles and smart textiles that change color are the next step. If one day we manage to make flexible fabrics that are screens, I have no doubt that we will wear them one way or another. Because it would be extraordinary to be able to change the colors and patterns of our clothes, every day, according to our moods. In the lab, it's already possible. Technologically, I think we are not very far from it. Already last year, Samsung and Huawei's first foldable screen phones, which transform from smartphones to tablets, were unveiled. In addition to those previously mentioned, several technological challenges arise: from a hygiene point of view, how are you going to take care and wash these screen textiles? From an ethical point of view, how can we defend the fact of adding new sources of energy consumption to clothes, in a context of ecological crisis? These tissues will have to be self-sufficient, in terms of energy, which is not necessarily that complicated because they can be powered by our body movements. Still, this concept of the screen body, on which we project things, will have its role to play in the fashion tech of tomorrow. For my part, it touches me enormously. It makes us think about the place of technology and our animal bodies at the heart of our civilization.

* Will Robocop wear dresses tomorrow? Exoskeleton jeans to help us walk? All the answers in the last part of our interview with Olivier Levard, on Le Boudoir Numérique : “Isn't the fashion of the future the one that changes our bodies?”.

* Read the first part of the Boudoir Numérique interview with Olivier Levard: "Fashion can no longer look down on geeks and tech".

* Continue reading with the following Boudoir Numérique papers : 

- Hanifa show with 3D clothes, a prelude to fashion weeks without models?

- Milan FW SS21 – Virtual fashion models dance the Macarena for Sunnei

- Olivier Rousteing's avatar welcomes you to Balmain's virtual showroom

- Noonoouri, digital fashion model for Stephen Jones

- Milan FW SS21 : Fashion tech recap of the digital edition 

- Paris FW Menswear SS21 : Fashion tech recap of the digital edition

- Paris FW haute couture A-W 20-21 : Fashion tech recap of the digital edition

- Get contactless dressed with the digital outfits from Tribute Brand

- Fashinnovation virtual fashion show powered by AI startup bigthinx

- Animal Crossing fashion show : discover the silhouettes of Balenciaga, Chanel, Louis Vuitton and the others

- Boudoir Numerique's favorite : luminous accessories by Louis Vuitton

* Olivier Levard is the author of the book "Nous sommes tous des robots, comment Google, Apple et les autres vont changer votre corps et votre vie" ("We are all robots, how Google, Apple and others will change your body and your life"), Michalon, 2014, 284 pages.