Cirque Du Soleil - Luzia in Toronto

Enjoying some time in Toronto and I was treated to the beautiful treat that is Cirque Du Soleil's newest production LUZIA. This production was inspired by Mexican Culture. The name Luzia is a combination of the Spanish words for light and rain.

This show opened with the central clown suspended from the top like he had a parachute mishap. He was surrounded by a field of traditional marigold flowers. When he landed, it transformed into a scene with a butterfly dancer with wings that spread out past the width of the stage. She runs while the stage rotates around with a metallic horse puppeteered by several performers behind her. The giant round disk is a constant symbol for many things like the Aztec calendar, sunset, moon or film reel.

Both set designer Eugenio Caballero and costume designer Giovanna Buzzi were careful not to appropriate the culture directly and settle for stereotypes. They changed up the color palettes, from monochrome to super bright. They brought in animal motifs. There was a giant Papel Picado cylinder acting as a patterned veil, playing with the scale of what is usually a delicate paper party decoration. My favorite costume was the diva's dress of white and red flowers. The designers used innovative tech, the almost 100 flowers open and close as she sings, attached to individual little motors. 
The show is the most beautiful performance art of intricate choreography and design. It is merely a bonus that the cast performs feats of physical wonders. There was one contortionist that was so flexible that he left the audience white-knuckled in their seats.
The other major theme and design element was the use of rain and water. The downpour was used for dramatic effect in several acts both for humor and stunning visual effect. With tricks of lighting, it looks like the tent was raining all sorts of symbols and narratives into the stage. There was a tiny pool in the middle in some acts to represent Mexican cenotes. The pool was used to very sexy effect with the long-haired, shirtless aerialist who swung his hair through the water as he dipped and soared through the air.

I have been a fan of Cirque du Soleil for over 20 years. I have attended a different production almost every year as a cherished family outing. Every year I think that yes, it will be gorgeous, but they can't possibly surprise me. Every single year I am wrong. The set design, production, and costumes of LUZIA blew me away and had left me with tons of inspiration.

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Boston Museum of Fine Arts #Techstyle

What do you know of science-based style? The Boston Museum of Fine Arts has a fantastic exhibit on Tech Style until July 10th. It examines the collaboration of technology and scientists working with designers to create fashion in new ways.

Fashion in 2016 is so much more than a traditionally woven fabric pushed through a sewing machine. The show has great pieces of 3D printed looks (with Iris Van Herpen yet again). There were also shoes. Not only can 3D printing create fully wearable sculpture, but also elements to create a flexible textile. The red dress at the top was inspired by the nervous system by designer/biologists Jessica Rosenkrantz and Jesse Louis-Rosenberg. The individual cells of the dress can be customizable in shape and direction to best flatter and move with the wearer.

Then there were the outfits wired with tech as a different ornamental element. There was a dress with programmable digital patterns that you change on a whim. There was a suit with embedded lighting and Hussein Chalayan's robotic outfits where parts of the dress could move on their own.

Other embellishment techniques included intricate digital printing from Alexander McQueen and Mary Katrantzou. Laser-cutting was showcased beautifully in a Manish Arora top. One of the wittiest dresses was the Viktor & Rolf piece that took the idea of "wearable art" literally. The technically advanced bonded fabric formed a framed flat piece of artwork when hung up on the wall, but would conform to the body when worn.

If you liked the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Manus x Machina exhibit, the #techstyle show was a deeper dive into how technology is shaping modern fashion design. It takes a lot more than mere science and technology to make fashion beautiful. This exhibition was a great example of the best of both worlds.

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Fashionware's Wearable Tech Fashion Show 2015

So what is your view of wearable tech? Is it stylish? Runway worthy? The big convention of tech CE Week rolls out the newest gadgets to the techie consumer. Their marquee event is the Fashionware fashion show to showcase the glam side of gadgets.

This show demonstrates that wearable tech is more than your FitBit. You can make a bright impression, with dresses by Angela Dale. The holographic, rainbow LEDs on the silver dress (top) and the space-age dresses worn by the musicians of the band Sidney York were choreographed with the tunes of the catwalk.  The cute Stella Audio clutch handbag the model up top is carrying is also embedded with Bluetooth speakers so you can produce your own soundtrack so you can turn any spot into your personal nightclub.

The strapless cocktail dress and heels on the top right corner were both 3D printed to the model's measurements. Other hacks were the use of technology like the MeU display that can be applied to garments and programmed via smartphone to display and design (picture the flirting or cursing possiblities...).

Designer Valerie LaMontagne created an elegant shift dress and ruffled scarf that looked at home in any posh setting but used "smart" fabrics.. What you don't see is that the dress is embedded with motion sensors that react to the wearer's movements. The scarf contains hard and soft circuits. The model's necklace is a fashion forward locket by Kiroco. Instead of traditional photos, it acts as a digital safe to hold your precious moments.

Chris March, the flamboyant Project Runway alumni, and entrepreneur (I love his collaborations with Target) hosted the event. The runway presentation was short, but CE Week's Fashionware runway should provide enough inspiration for tech-savvy designers to think about their next collection.

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Fashion Innovation at the 3D Print Design Show

3D printing may be the hottest buzzword in design, but it still is not adopted into the fashion industry as a go-to medium. Maybe the technology is a little intimidating. Perhaps brands are still struggling to find a way to make it mass production friendly. Perhaps they still see it as a the machine that just makes plastic toys.

How fashion designers are using 3D Printing now:

The 3D Print Design Show demonstrated a range of products now on the market. Many of them applicable to current fashion needs. The dress above from Melinda Looi had crystal embedded plastic cells printed into a chain-mail like textile that was movable and wearable.

Jewelry was the first area of the fashion business that adopted 3D printed technology. NinjaFlex is a company that makes a flexible filament for a softer product. Remember jelly bracelets and jelly shoes? You can make much more intricate ones in custom designs like the necklace on the left.

Bridging old-school techniques and the new. Traditional wax casting of jewelry involved carving hand wax into the jewelry piece shape you needed before casting the precious metal. You could spend weeks on the wax model and have it destroyed in an instant. Well now, you could just 3D print the design in wax, adjust the style, design or shape and correct it in minutes.

Shoes have been the other category adopting 3D printing in innovative ways. You could print the entire shoe of course, but many designers are using this technology to partial elements of the shoe for the more fashion forward aspects of the design, while using more traditional materials like wood and leather. This is a great way for independent brands to create some very avant-garde concepts without the expense of high minimums at a regular footwear factory.

So are you ready to take on the next frontier of fashion? 3D Printing is coming up with new materials, new capabilities and becoming more affordable for designers every day. These designs represent what is currently on the market, What's coming down the pipeline is more spectacular still...

Check out What Wearable Tech Is Doing for You Now
by Ms. Fabulous at Mode

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What's New in 3D Printing For Fashion

3D Printing has been the biggest buzz word in product development in the last few years. While you can find lots of little machines that squirt out plastic toys, can you really see it making what we might actually wear every day?

Shapeways is one of the leading 3D printing services that independent fashion designers are using to produce jewelry, shoes and other accessories using metal in addition to the typical plastic-like filaments. They can also produce a ceramic finish or laser cut leathers and wood. You might have seen Shapeway’s collaboration with Victoria’s Secret to create the dramatic angel wings at their fashion show.

Knitting machines from companies like Stoll were already producing full finished garments with their programming, before 3D printing was a catchphrase. If you really watch the process though, it is very similar in how it uses a yarn and shoots it out to in layers to knit a finished sweater. There are also companies developing a silicone coated yarns as a material for true 3 printers.

How about a silk wedding dress? Though it hasn’t happened yet, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has managed to produce huge dome of silk by working with CAD software and a network of silkworms. Reprogramming them to weave actual clothing seems very close to being a reality (though they might have done it by now).

It’s not just fashion that has seen new developments from 3D printing. A woman at Harvard is crowd-funding a project that lets you 3D print your own cosmetics at home. I can’t even tell you how fast I want this project funded! 

Savvy designers are mixing 3D technologies to create fashion. Sid Neigum used a mix of laser cutting and origami for his Toronto Fashion Week show. Iris Van Herpen used a combination of magnetic field, injection molding and laser cutting for her spring 2015 collection to amazing effect.

If you can dream it, fashion innovators can build it (or design it, print it, etc.) Style makers have always been at the forefront of technology and 3D printed fashion is just another tool fashion designers are using to make you look good.

Images from: Steven Keating.Shapeways blog, Grace Mink, Mariana Leung, Iris Van Herpen images from Dezeen.com

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#NYFW: Vivienne Tam Spring 2015 & the Forbidden City

Vivienne Tam is a master in merging traditional Chinese themes with contemporary techniques.  For spring 2015, the designer took her inspiration from China’s Forbidden City. 

Landscapes and nature patterns like waves and clouds were printed onto blouses or handbags.  Birds, flowers and trees were embroidered onto athletic fabrics like power mesh.  Printed neoprene was cut and appliqued onto other fabrics in a sports meets high fashion mix.  These motifs are found in historical artwork and handicrafts in China and treasures from inside the Forbidden City.  Her color palette was similar to her collections of the past. She used her signature red, black and ivory.  There was a pretty ceramic blue and bits of citrus yellow and purple in prints.

The big trend in many collections this season is wearable tech.  Vivienne Tam offered handbags that charged your phone when you put it inside.  Unlike many of the clunky pieces that many tech companies produced, the accessories on this runway were so stylish, I would be happy to buy them on design alone with the functionality being a big bonus.

The most popular jewelry was a variation on the knotted beaded friendship bracelet.  Unfortunately, my least favorite part of the catwalk was the footwear.  Normally, I would be enthusiastic about seeing a designer promote practical, comfortable footwear, but the socks and flat sandals the models wore looked like a bad tourist cliché.  Paired with the sleek, beautifully rendered pieces on the body above, it just did not make sense.  Was this a nod to the casual attire of Silicon Valley?  Sure, wearing comfy shoes should be a goal in real life, but on the New York Fashion Week runway, I realized I would prefer to see some nice heels on the models that are only spending 90 seconds in them.  Even the most professional of models, wearing socks and flat, duck-like sandals affects how they walk and the overall impression on the runway. 

With Vivienne Tam’s tongue-in-cheek design process, I think the models were lucky their feet were not bound instead.

photos by Mariana Leung

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CE Week's FashionWare Wearable Tech Runway

Fashion from the future made its way to the Metropolitan Pavilion this week.  All forms of wearable tech were showcased in a collaborative show at CE Week.  They ranged from functional gadgets to interactive fashion accessories.  There were illuminated embellishments that spanned LED lighting, pulse sensors, optic cables and digital screens.

Can tech fashion express love?  There was a couples outfit by the designers of Sait Radlab that displayed the electricity generated by the attraction between two people using an RFID readers, addressable LEDs and WiFi dongle to respond to another person's proximity.  To complement, the other person wore a wristband that monitored everything from stress levels, sleep and pulse waves.

The wedding gown featured everything from fibre optic cables, laser cut panels, addressable LEDs and pulse sensors.

There were shoes and accessories made from 3D printing techniques.  Earphones had a programmable skin that could be printed to match a person's outfit.  There was a vintage inspired pink silhouette by the designers of Make Fashion.  Using audio circuit technology that pulses to music, the embedded lighting succeeds in the wearer creating a spotlight for herself.  The fan contained gyroscope and programmable LED lights that corresponded to the model's movements.

Zazzi was a jewelry collection made of sterling silver that was tuned into your phone.  They had the capability to notify you of your texts, calls and social media notifications.

Two of the models wore a square accessory called the Narrative Clip.  this dainty accessory could hold 4000 photos, letting you project your life live...

I loved that wearable tech and true fashion designers collaborated to put together full looks.  Often the "tech" people trying to sell the idea are painfully clueless of the fashion element of wearables.  The fact that the gadgets and technology were seamlessly incorporated into the looks was proof of its progress.

I can't wait to try out some of the functional wearable tech in my own wardrobe.  Hell, I'm a fan of anything that makes my handbag lighter.

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Makerfaire - Wearable Tech Fashion

Taking a break from runway reports today to indulge my nerd side.  I visited Makefaire at the New York Hall of Science over the weekend to check out fashion as interpreted by scientists and artists.

Amber Lundy, MFA student at UC San Diego (above) created a fashionable jacket she hand tailored and engineered with interactive lights.  She intended it to be a dance costume for the stage.  Individual LEDs and wires would allow the bulbs to light up when the dancer was touched.

Other projects (below) included a sexy bustier by Erin Lewis that could show stock market quotes as the wearer undressed.  It used conductive fabric, electronic circuitry and Xbee radio.  Is that every Wall Streeter's fantasy or what?

Erin Lewis also created a skirt of wood, metal and fabric (housing debris) that would actually vibrate in response to seismological data it gathered around the planet.  Erin is a Canadian artist whose medium includes wearable technology and new media.

There was an entire section on 3D printing at MakerFaire.  I am amazed at the possibilities that this new technology brings.  I saw makers use it to create jewelry, parts for gloves, shoes, bikinis and much more.  Materials originally started with a type of plastic, but now include things like metal and ceramic.

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