At first glance they may look like ordinary T-shirts — but this could be the future of hi-tech fashion. Unveiled last night at a special London Fashion Week show, the shirts have a small symbol printed on the clothes like a barcode.
Look at them through a webcam or mobile phone and they come to life through Augmented Reality — AR.
Video, graphics and text can all appear and wearers will even be given virtual headwear. Designs can be updated and even programmed so that wearers see a different outfit each time they look.
The shirts are the brainchild of hip label Cassette Playa, whose cartoon-patterned clothes have been worn by Kanye West, Rihanna, Lily Allen and Hot Chip.
"Cassette Playa is all about mixing reality and fantasy," says Carri Munden, who designed the collection in collaboration with the Fashion Digital Studio based at the London College of Fashion.
Major brands are already embracing AR. Adidas recently launched trainers with AR embedded into their tongues, giving wearers the chance to access interactive games via the Adidas website that use the shoe as a games controller.
More practical applications of AR may include a clothes labelling system so that the digital overlay acts as a label, giving information on the garment's production, washing instructions, colours and sizes available, links to celebrities pictured in the garment, and so on.
The technology has enjoyed success in mobile-phone applications such as Layar, which superimposes information about the architectural history of the building you're looking at, for instance.
For London Fashion Week, AR is just one of a host of hi-tech innovations. Tomorrow evening even sees the first 3D catwalk show, with Burberry allowing viewers to have "front-row views" to the live show when it is held tomorrow.
The heritage fashion house will be the first to use Avatar-style technology to display its fashion collection and viewers in Tokyo, Paris, New York, Dubai and LA will need to wear special glasses to view the shows in custom-designed spaces.
In another industry first, every London Fashion Week show will be streamed live online as part of the digital line-up.
