To go along with the FYODOR GOLAN x Nokia skirt debut at London Fashion week Annie Kearney from Nokia gives us a Q&A and goes into more detail about the collab....
-Why did this project come about?
Annie Kearney, Nokia Brand Lab:
“We have a long history of working within fashion, a great example is we recently brought David Bailey and Bruce Weber together to shoot for the first time (using our 41 megapixel Nokia Lumia 1020). You only need to look at the front row of every show at fashion week to see the role of smartphones, with designs online before they hit the end of the runway. As a result the Nokia Lumia 1520 has been really well received in the fashion industry, the camera, the screen, the design, it gives seriously impressive photos, plus the battery and the high res screen mean that you could literally file from the front row or from cabs in-between the shows. We wanted to tell that story in a completely new way, experiment with the possibilities between fashion and technology. The Nokia Brand Lab have been talking to the London College of Fashion Innovation team for a long time, looking for the right project and designer to support. When we met Fyodor Golan we loved what they stood for, they have a super strong color story and were happy to innovate and create with us, we believe that projects like these only succeed if there is true collaboration. Cue our tech partner Kin. Kin took the creative vision and design elegance of FG and matched it with the tech capabilities found in the Nokia Lumia 1520 and 1020 to create a really amazing piece of fashion. It is so much more than a skirt made of phones, its playing with the idea of how tech can influence and be influenced by the world around it.
F: "All my life I had Nokia phones and I love them for being easy! They have great design aesthetic”
-What was the inspiration behind it?
Annie Kearney, Nokia Brand Lab:
It’s a technical work of art. We started with the vision from FG and worked with KIN to create something based on the technical capabilities and design cues of the Nokia Lumia 1520. This includes the seamless 3D printing of the intricate internal structure, the interaction between the phones using the Windows Phone software, plus the unibody design and stunning Nokia Camera capabilities.
FG:
“The dress is built using movement and tile effect that we saw whilst backpacking in Myanmar and Cambodia as inspiration. We are trying to reflect this using actual Nokia phones that will achieve total image that runs through the screens on the piece.”
“This A/W 14 season we toyed with ideas tradition against technology, we explored this contrast through fabrications that are technical fabrics, embroideries that reflect traditions but develop them in modern ways and materials and 3D printing, we wanted to create this surreal feel this season through these opposite elements - this is why we believe Nokia piece is perfect combination in reflecting the ideas and spirit.”
-What was the biggest challenge in developing the dress?
Matt Wade, Kin Design:
The biggest challenge by far was finding a way to work synchronously with different technologies and processes in a really tight timeline. After a large number of drawings and calculations, we had to shape and braze a steel frame; custom print 5 different types of clip; write custom software; and hang 80 devices in a small space, with a simple way to charge them and get access to buttons, whilst making it all feel like one designed object where all of those processes disappear and you all see is a dress. That's not including all the bits we got wrong as we prototyped it. All of that said, the development of a project and product unlike anything we have developed before has meant that all of this resulted in something we initially only imagined and pure hard work has resulted in being a reality.
-How long did it take to make?
Matt Wade, Kin Design:
The whole process, from initial ideas through to actual finished project, has taken three months. There has been a lot of of discussion, technical studies and prototypes that have made the final product possible. The actual build has taken around three weeks, but this has been an intensive process to ensure we achieved everything we have aimed for.
-How does the dress function?
Matt Wade, Kin Design (built the actual dress):
“The key property of the dress is as one continuous surface that knows where it is in space – so it knows it's orientation and position as it moves. That surface then has two different modes that it can run – it can show static images, either pre-loaded into the system, or it can load live images from a camera feed. It can also show moving image, again either pre-loaded or from a live camera feed. Laid over this is a slight colour change that shifts as the dress moves. This is intended to make each node within the dress shimmer and soften what is essentially a load of overlaid mobile computers giving a digital output some of the tactile character of a physical fabric.”
-Do you see a possibility of a dress of this kind having commercial success in the future?
Annie Kearney, Nokia Brand Lab:
This project is much more than a dress. It’s a technical work of art. We started with the vision from FG and worked with KIN to create something based on the technical capabilities and design cues of the Nokia Lumia 1520. This includes the seamless 3D printing of the intricate internal structure, the interaction between the phones using the Windows Phone software, plus the unibody design and stunning Nokia Camera capabilities. The world of tech and fashion are colliding more than ever, and they both need to adapt to stay current, relevant and interesting. True collaborations like this deliver ideas and content that we could only imagine a matter of year. Innovation opens up many possibilities.
-Are there any more tech fashion projects lined up for Fyodor Golan?
FG:
“we started to work with 3D printing and we will debut a piece during LFW, when we started the design process we discovered new ways of designing and seeing our designs 360 on the screen, we believe in few years fashion could reach new level of creative development of the clothes once the right materials are discovered and developed.the best thing about this that you can create almost anything that isn't influenced by gravity.”
“Technology is in its first steps on the fashion side, there are many funky ideas, but they all miss fashion/design aspect, We are on the right track but there is defiantly some developments required to create product that people will actually want to wear.”
“We actually have plans to work with Nokia again, we had an idea whilst working on this dress which we’re looking to work on for SS15!”
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