Even though the tech-enabled fabric would cost a little extra, the corollary is met with wide acceptance once the magic of glamour and the innovative advancement of a technology encounter each other, and how this goes down we will attempt to show in more detail.
The course of less blinkered, or more commonly referred to as conventional, fashion is being changed in the direction of a more outre fashion by the majority of big brands in the industry presently. As one may have heard from the recent news, Levis has released its brand new SUPER DOPE smart jacket in collaboration with Google. The product is specifically designed for people who commute on a bike. The cost of the jacket is reported to be $350 which is undoubtedly far more than any of us would be willing to spend on a jacket. Despite having a considerably high price, however, the release is gaining a lot of popularity. The product basically enables you to operate google maps, listen to music, show text and answer phone calls while on-going.
As it may be obvious by now, the entire fashion culture is shifting its pace, priorities, and methods to infuse technology and a lot of trends in relation to it. Safe to say that the incorporation of technology and adopting the latter does very much seem to be the way to survive in today’s world, and the fashion industry is not falling behind. This could also be the reason most sports gear brands, such as Nika, endorse themselves as more of a tech-driven company than an apparel company. Nike is famous for constantly coming up with seemingly radical solutions with state-of-the-art sensors in order to measure calories burnt, speed, heart rate, distance run, and other features while performing ideally any activity.
AI In Rescue
AI, Artificial Intelligence has a lot to do with the revolutionization occurring in fashion as well. The case study conducted regarding this matter found that customers would very much like if for example, upon walking into Marks & Spencer, seeing a myriad of options and not knowing where to go while FOMO clouding their judgment, to have a kiosk installed in every section where customers would have an ability to choose the type of fabric they are willing to purchase, the fitting color, the size and many more. The kiosk would tell the customer what the store currently has in stock and what type of items are available that would please the given preferences. It would be kind of like shopping on a mobile app, except you would have to physically be in the store. Can you imagine how many lives this would change and how much time this would save an immense amount of people? There would be no more anxiety associated with ordering clothing items online and worrying about the size, material, and overall quality.
All of this, supposedly, seems to be true because nowadays, data is the most desirable business model and the companies that are willing to thrive in the coming years are those that reinvent themselves to keep up with the changes in technology and society. We can conclude that in the examples brought above, both companies are assisted with the use of technology in order to collect tons and tons of data upon which, afterward, a bigger supply of data tech will be applied to know what customers desire at a given point in time. Such a solution can be extremely helpful in terms of inventory management as well.
Having proven just how life-changing tech involvement in the fashion industry can be, it would be fairly interesting to look at the blockchain use-cases and concretize how this method could be helpful instead of a traditional database.
Blockchain Pros
First and foremost, it should be pointed out that what makes Blockchain unique is its ability to have the data are once written onto the ledger never changed again. To dramatize things a little bit, let us say that no single individual will be more powerful than the other in the realm of blockchain and only the truth will triumph. Secondly, it is distributed and truly decentralized which means everyone can know what exactly goes down. There is no such phenomenon as a centralized authority responsible for sharing the data.
The third reason why blockchain would be met with success if it were introduced to the fashion industry is the volatile outrage coming from the environmental enthusiasts that are opposed to any usage of the animal skin in the clothing industry. Instead of tiring debates with the sellers or time-consuming investigation of nature and the origin of the products, blockchain would enable customers to learn exactly where the product is coming from. In addition, there are sizable benefits that blockchain offers its clients. This practice is readily available in many countries and a couple of examples include registration bonuses for the US blockchain websites, even the sign-up bonuses for Australian players, the famous Stellar airdrop and many other innovative offers.
As odd as it may sound, the philanthropic aspect of blockchain should also be looked into. It is not a newsflash of any sort that a bunch of highly talented people that dwell in remote places often make intricate fabrics that carry great fashion value. Most of the time, not only the regular fashion brands but high-end designers too benefit from these people by hiring them at a very low wage. This is a very blatant and direct example of exploiting people in an aggressive fashion, no pun intended. Could there possibly be some type of hope for Blockchain to empower people and prompt those employed in the fashion industry to act more ethically? Perhaps, it can also be utilized as a tool with the use of which clothing production moves back to the local, distributed hubs.
In fact, back in 2017, London-based designer Martine Jarlgaard collaborated with the Blockchain company Provenance. He took the initiative to kick off the production of the so-called ‘’smart labels’’. What this meant is that consumers could scan the clothing item to see every step made during the production process starting from the raw material to the final product. Such a service will be extremely helpful for the portion of the consumers that are specifically interested in how, where and by what means their clothes were made.
All in all, more technology presents itself in the fashion industry, the better it will be. Not only for the consumers but for those who live in deplorable conditions as well. Since Blockchain inherently enables P2P trade, there would no longer be the need for middlemen. Direct purchases from people, rather than from the brands would become possible and the production, as we mentioned above, would take a shift to the distributed, local hubs.
