Richard Nicholl Handbag

Richard Nicholl has collaborated with Vodafone to design a mobile phone charging handbag

The handbag is charged by the mains power and then has the ability to charge a mobile for 2 days

The Wardrobe Staple: Jeans

I couldn't live without my jeans

Could wearing jeans help purify the air...?

Helen Storey has developed treated jeans which remove nitrogen oxide from the air.

So wearing Jeans could be good for the environment.

Read more here

Images from a variety of online sources

Put Your Best Shoes On

Some of the shoes I'd have loved to have picked up along the way

Azzedine Alaia Booties

Alberta Ferretti Embelished Boots

Andreia Chaves Invisible Shoe

Sam Edelman for Balenciaga Zoe Boots

Burberry Prorsum Heels

Donna Karan

Nicholas Kirkwood

Topshop Heel Boots

United Nude

Shoes by Nowhere, as seen on 5 Inch and Up

There might be even more reason to put your best foot first, as it has been released that marketing data of shopping patterns within stores could be gained by tracking people's movements by following their shoes!

Read more here

Gold Fabric

A Swiss team at EMPA institute has developed a gold-coated fiber!

The pure gold is affixed to silk and 'the thread can be woven into a beautiful, surprisingly durable and washable 24 carat fabric' Randolph Jonsson

http://www.gizmag.com/empa-real-gold-wearable-fiber/20352/

Bodymetrics Pods

A 3D body scanner that helps you find the clothes that will fit perfectly.

The first Body Mapping scanner is now available at a New Look store in London's Westfield Stratford City shopping mall.
http://www.gizmag.com/bodymetrics-body-mapping-for-clothes-fitting/20270/

Robotic Mannequins

Could robots be the next way to display clothes?

Image from the film irobots

"I can see robots playing a significant role in displaying clothes, and how they might hang and “fall” on a human" Mike Halman, http://www.gizmag.com/dropop-the-eager-robotic-mannequin/13596/

D+ropop is the eco friendly cost effective cardboard elegant Japanese robot

I can see that mannequins in the window of stores which are moving and show what the clothes look like in motion could be very interesting, and would create much more diverese window displays.

GOOGLE MAPS - STORE VIEW

Google Maps' Street View is soon going to give us a glimpse of inside the shops and businesses that as of now we've only been able to see the outside of when strolling down the street on Google Maps.

"Google Business Photos are essentially interior Street View shots, allowing you to get a 360-degree view of a store or restaurant. Google has been photographing businesses since last year, but they're just now putting the results online. Businesses from Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Washington, D.C. are included, and it'll presumably grow from there." Adam Frucci, http://dvice.com/archives/2011/10/google-maps-to.php

Things like this just prove how exciting technology is. Who knows, soon we'll be able to check out our favourite stores on the British high street before we actually visit them. Maybe one day we'll be able to walk around a store from our own homes picking things off shelves that take our fancy, a slightly more real online shopping experience.

Melt Tags

The answer to excessive waste tags on clothes....melt tags dissolve when the garment is washed after purchase. Genius.

Read about it more here

FABRICAN

A while ago now I had the privilege of going to an exciting show called The Fabrican, Science in Style fashion show. Through pot luck my dad came across the show on a gadget website (you'll soon see why!) and thought I might be interested. It wasn't open to the public but I managed to wangle 3 tickets for me and two of my flatmates also at London College of Fashion.

The show coincided with both London Fashion Week and the London Design Festival and was a show that really stood out from the rest. It was held on Monday 20^th September at Imperial College London and was like nothing seen before. A celebration of both science, material technology and fashion, it was a spectacle of haute-couture dresses made using an innovative spary-on fabric technology called Fabrican.

The Fabrican spray-on fabric is an instant non-woven fabric which can be sprayed onto surfaces using aerosol cans or spray-guns, allowing fast application of clothing. Fabrican was conjured up by Spanish designer Manel Torres whilst he was studying for his MA in women's wear at The Royal College of Art some 15 years ago. It has been developed since then with a partnership between Torres and Professor Paul Luckham from the Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London.

The event was a showcase of Manel's 2011 Spring/Summer Collection using the technology. Sitting in the audience eagerly awaiting the start of the show I didn't really know what to expect. I pictured models sauntering down the runway in sporty spray-on t-shirts and leggings, but I was far from right.

As the lights went down and the music started the first model appeared, eerily walking down the catwalk in an enchanting wash of white. The dress was quite something, consisting of a wired wavy skirt and hem structure which had been sprayed with Fabrican.

When sprayed, Fabrican has an illusion similar to that of cobwebs with a slightly transparent look. Many of the pieces were cage like structures which were the filled in using the Fabrican, creating very clean and interesting shapes. Other pieces consisted of sleek wide leg trousers, skin tight bodices creating a second skin and long fringy dresses conjuring images of children's silly string . The finale was a full length dress where the skirt was entirely made from wire spheres coated in Fabrican, creating the illusion that the model was walking in a sea of bubbles. Rumour has it the finale dress took a whole day to spray!

  

See the aerosols? At the end of the show, the models enjoyed spraying each other and the designer with Fabrican!

These photos show the ideas and styles but apologies for the quality.

Fabrican is certainly something to look out for in the future. But not only in fashion. It has many uses!

Check it out here: http://www.fabricanltd.com/