Syuzi Pakhchyan

Here’s your chance to enter a wearable tech competition focused on making wearables more fashionable. The projects can be conceptual and it looks all you need are drawings and sketches. 

Deadline: Sept 5, 2014

Details below:

Welcome to the 2014 FashioNXT Wearable Technology Fashion Competition for the most fashionable wearable technology design concept, presented by Digital Trends.

The purpose of this competition is to inspire innovative thinking to go beyond and above making technology wearable to making it fashionable and most importantly worn. Imagine and design what has not been imagined before. Stretch the imagination on all ideas fashionable with no limits or boundaries. Change the status quo on how the world experiences the use of technology through fashion.

Conceptual designs are encouraged to be fashion forward with use of innovative technology design methodologies and proposed materials. Design concepts do not have to be currently feasible. The technology specifications are not part of the competition criteria. The competition’s sole focus is on the fashion forwardness of the conceptual designs and the designs ability to motivate the audience to desire the product concept. 

The finalists and winner will receive recognition of their talent by having their design concepts showcased at the 2014 FashioNXT runway show and receiving national and international press.  A prize package will be awarded to the winner of the most fashionable wearable technology design concept, details below.   

Judging Panel

• Jeremy Kaplan – Editor in Chief, Digital Trends 
• Howard Nuk – Head of Industrial Design, Samsung Design America
• Michelle Lesniak – Fashion designer, winner of Project Runway season 11.
• Eden Dawn – Style Editor, Portland Monthly Magazine
• Russ Stromberg – Account Director, Synapse
• Matt Rhoades – Design Lead, Nike
• Mark Francis – Venture Lead, New Business Initiative, Intel

Prize Package

• $1,000 Cash Prize
• Feature on Digital Trends, The Manual, The Oregonian-Oregonlive and FashioNXT.net
• Showcased at FashioNXT 2014 Runway Show and free exhibit at FashioNXT 2015 Runway Show
• A computer system with Intel’s latest technology, courtesy of Intel Corporation
• Complimentary benefits from Oregon Entrepreneurs Network (OEN)
• One year free membership to Technology Association of Oregon (TAO)

How to Participate   

The Wearable Technology Fashion Competition is open to anyone with fashionable ideas – creatives of all types, students, entrepreneurs, designers, engineers, technologists, and visionary thinkers. To Participate, submit the following about your design concept online.  

• 200 Word Description of Functionality
• Conceptual Drawings / Sketches                            
• Optional: One Minute Video

Contestants are required to submit their design concept by September 5, 2014. Three finalists will be determined by industry experts and announced on September 15. The finalists will have their designs showcased at the FashioNXT Runway Show on October 9, 2014 in Portland, Oregon at which one contestant will emerge as the winner of the most fashionable wearable technology design concept. All participants must be 16 or older. Finalists have to cover their own travel cost to FashioNXT.

Judging Criteria

• Fashion Forwardness
• Innovation and Originality of Design
• Functionality of Technology Application   

Mass customization appears to be making a huge come back as companies are streamlining the production and manufacturing of personalized products. Mass customization was a hot topic in the late 90’s, with Nike launching NIKEID, a website that allows you design your own Nike shoes, in 1999. Today it’s not only the big players like Nike and Burberry who are entering into the bespoke goods market. Startups, banking on the fatigue of fashion fashion, are building businesses that allow customers to create personalized, one-of-a-kind products. 

Convival Project is a London-based studio that has created a beautiful IOS App that allows customers to customize the patterns of a scarf. The Generative Scarves app enables the user to customize colors and patterns and create a unique print for an individual scarf that can be ordered online.

Tinker Tailor, founded by Aslaug Magnusdottir, brings bespoke luxury fashion to the masses. Working with designers like Marchesa, customers can customize the hem, pattern, and cut of a dress online. Personalization aspects are limited but too much choice traditionally hasn’t worked well with consumers. 

Other websites to note are Shoes of Prey, Ethreads, and 121time.com.

According to this Mckinsey report, the new wave of mass customization is being driven by a number of factors including interactive product configurators, 3D scanning and printing, and flexible manufacturing systems. 

So why discuss mass customization on a wearable tech blog? The recent and much applauded trend for wearable technology companies has been to engage with the Fashion industry. Wearables are trying to become more fashionable. As I work with companies to try to bring “fashion” to wearable devices, I’ve come to the conclusion that “fashion” or “great product design” may not be the holy grail to getting products adopted by the mainstream. 

Wearables don’t need to just become more fashionable, they must become more personal — both in the user experience and form factor.

Could mass customization become a key to greater adoption of wearable technology? After all, wearable technology is intimate. Our devices need to conform to us — not us conforming to our devices. 

For women, smart jewelry has become the antidote to the bulky, smart watches designed predominately for the male, tech-obsessed market. At least, that appears to be the wearable tech trend for 2014. If historically jewelry was used as a signifier of fertility, wealth and social hierarchy, high tech adornments are aiming to be social identifiers for the powerful, “connected” busy women. Women  whose inboxes and voicemails are so full they need their jewelry to bling and buzz to selectively filter “important” calls and emails. 

Apparently I’m not important enough to be one of those women. 

The use cases for high-tech jewelry unfortunately fall short considering the affordances they currently provide. Most are feeble alert mechanisms for our mobile device attempting to solve the age old problem of people being immersed in glowing screens. Some are marketed as jewelry that keeps you connected while others tout the pleasure of allowing you to “disconnect.” 

Regardless of the utility, one thing is certain: If these high-tech baubles are to subsist after one season, design has to reign. These young companies need to understand the fashion accessories market and the trend-driven competitive landscape — and design and manufacture accordingly — to be considered more than a novelty and a one-season wonder. 

A few should be applauded for bringing a unique voice to their smart jewelry collection because it is indeed new territory — both for jewelry designers and engineers alike.  

Kovert 

“With a strong focus on aesthetics, kovert designs create ‘smart’ designer wearable technology products, by embedding electronic sensors and wireless connections into fashion accessories. kovert empowers you to disconnect. this is about letting your technology take care of itself, so that you can get on with the things that really matter.”

http://kovertdesigns.com

BlueJewelz

“BlueJewelz discretely vibrates when you receive a text message, email or call from one of your VIP contacts. The BlueJewelz Notif disc easily fits into any BlueJewlz-compatible jewelry—available from BlueJewlz and coming soon to participating retailers.”

http://www.bluejewelz.com

Ringly 

Ringly creates beautiful smart jewelry and accessories that keep you effortlessly connected to the things that matter most. Our core belief is that technology can be more discreetly integrated into our lives. Ringly places style and simplicity above all else and our first product line is a collection of rings.

www.ringly.com

Netamo June

JUNE suggests the most appropriate SPF cream for your skin, taking into account the current UV levels. It reminds you when to put your hat and sunglasses on, and when to move into the shade…

You will know exactly when and how to protect yourself to prevent sunburn and premature aging of your skin.

www.netamo.com

Cuff 

The Cuff is a wearable security device that can be attached to jewelry. This technology can be use to locate the user and is equipped with a distress button that will alert other people who are in the user’s Cuff network. The alerts are relayed by a vibrator which is installed inside the Cuff. It will vibrate when other Cuff users press the distress button or another user try to locate the Cuff using their smart phones.

www.cuff.io

Fashion designers have become tech giants’ latest muse as companies like Google, Fitbit, Intel and now HP embrace fashion to transform their latest gadgets into lifestyle products. HP tapped menswear designer Michael Bastian to turn geeky, feature driven smart watches into a covetable, luxury watch. 

Bastian, with a successful track record collaborating with Gant, is known for his New England preppie signature style. From the looks of the early sketches, the smart watch is greatly inspired by automotive design. 

It features a 44-mm stainless steel case, buttons for control (no touch screen) and comes with three interchangeable bands to fit your life style: black rubber for sport; perforated leather for everyday wear and olive green nylon for a more rugged, outdoorsy look. 

As for functionality, the watch is touted, first and foremost, as an elegant timepiece enhanced with “smart” functionality. The watch can provide weather, stock and sport updates in addition to acting as a notifier for your emails, text and social media notifications. 

Bastian’s smart watch is expected to debut this Fall exclusively on flash site Gilt.