Is virtual reality the future of the fashion show?
This week, Balenciaga announced that they would be streaming their AW16 show – the first under new creative director Demna Gvasalia of Vetements – to a mobile and tablet app in the form of 360 degree, virtual reality footage. Calling it “a new panorama, for a new era of Balenciaga”, the house described the gesture as “an egalitarian proposition, allowing a worldwide audience the unique opportunity to view a Balenciaga show like never before…immediate and real-time for the new creative identity of the maison.” While details on how this will look are sparse, we can assume that giant VR headsets won’t be necessary – viewers will most likely be able to simply move their phones or manipulate their screens to control the direction of the camera.
Yesterday morning, renowned runway experimenter Hussein Chalayan announced that shortly after his show today, a 360 video will be available to view online.
For Chalayan, who is working in collaboration with Swarovski, it’s far from the first time he’s dabbled in the high tech and futuristic – he’s previously shown LED-lit dresses, transformative robotic outfits, and last season, models wore garments that simply melted away beneath streams of water.
360 filming is a technique that’s already been employed in several high-profile cases – last season, for what was later revealed to be Raf Simons’ final show for Dior, the house made a post-show video available in this style where viewers could use a click wheel to view different aspects of the runway. Back in June, they also debuted Dior Eyes, a 3D printed virtual reality headset found in select stores that promised to “lift the curtain” on the house’s latest ready-to-wear show, giving shoppers an immersive look behind the scenes. Björk also famously used the technique for her recent Dazed-premiered “Stonemilker” video, and (unsurprisingly) companies have started exploring the pornographic, first-person POV possibilities of VR headsets.
The adoption of 360 is evidence that this digital democracy is ever-expanding, and gaining pace – with brands increasingly prioritising fans and consumers over now seemingly archaic systems (as with the See-Now, Buy-Now trend embraced to different extents by everyone from Burberry to Prada).
See the full story with video here: http://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/30163/1/is-virtual-reality-the-future-of-the-fashion-show?curator=FashionREDEF