The 21st century gave birth to a generation constantly hunting for information and the latest trend. This has lead to a much needed blurring between tech and fashion.
We all have a smartphone, tablet or laptop (or all 3) but how many of these devices are just black slabs of plastic (or glass and metal if you’re lucky)? As mobile devices integrate into our daily life, they need to shift away from merely being functional to being aesthetically pleasing as well.
This necessity is no more evident than with the rise of wearable technology.
When the first smartwatches became commercially available, they had design that only a mother could love. It was clearly evident that tech companies didn’t understand the need for a device to be functional as well as beautiful to look at.
The watch goes back centuries and is essentially the most widely known form of fashionable tech. We’ve all grown up with watches, whether analog or digital. I remember wanting a calculator watch when I was in school. I remember learning to tell time on a watch.
Watches have a nostalgic appeal. We all have some sort of emotional connection to watches, maybe because they remind us of times gone by or because they remind us of the people who used to own them. Watches also have a certain sense of status attached to them, when you see a person wearing a Rolex you automatically think wealth and success.
Either way, tech companies figured this out and started changing the shape of smartwtaches. Gone were the square faces that looked like a mini tile sitting on your wrist and hello to the new circular watch faces that reminded us of the watches we had growing up or even the high end watches that we see in jewelry stores today.
LG is one of the companies that realized the need for tech to be both beautiful in design as well as functional.
They’ve worked to actively set their devices apart from the crowd by using functional, aesthetically pleasing design as a key component when creating new smart devices.
Wearable tech isn’t the only place where technology has stepped into fashion’s territory.
“Technically speaking, we’ve been wearing tech in fashion for longer than we know. Many of the synthetic fabrics we use in fashion filtered down from some military lab where the material was developed for some or other nefarious purpose. Of course, in today’s world tech fabrication is one of the most exciting and endless horizons in fashion. Digital printing (though still largely unwearable when it comes to clothing) is quite commonplace. Some of the more exciting developments in the work include textiles that respond to our environments to help us regulate our internal climates while compensating for what’s happening around us; disposable and biodegradable spray on fashion; fashion that can be shaped or assembled through the use of magnets, etc. Of course the main objective with any of this is to integrate our lifestyle needs into our clothing, which is why wearable tech is perhaps the most exciting frontier of fashion. Smart watches are only the beginning. Already we are seeing some of the major sports brands producing apparel with intelligent devices built into the clothing to help monitor our heart rates and performance. It’s only a matter of time before mass retailers and luxury empires begin offering limited edition ready-to-wear or fashion accessories that speaks to us on the same level and offer us more in the way of digital utility than just a bit of glamour and style” says GQ South Africa’s Jason Basson.
As manufacturers continue to produce more and more smart devices, design and how a device reflects your personal style will become a key factor is choosing your next smartphone and wearable.
We teamed up with our friends at LG Mobile South Africa and Topshop (and TopMan) South Africa to show you how seamlessly technology can tie in with your own personal sense of style.
Styling by : Annamé Kleynscheldt (Topshop Personal Shopper) and Kelly Johnson (Topshop Personal Shopper assistant)
Photography by : Danillo Turilli (Danillo Turilli Photography and The Handlers)
All clothing by TopMan South Africa
Smartwatch (LG G Watch R) and smartphone (LG G Flex 2) by LG Mobile South Africa.