This article was taken from The WIRED World in 2016 -- our fourth annual trends report, a standalone magazine in which our network of expert writers and influencers predicts what's coming next. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.

In September 2012, models at the Diane von Furstenberg fashion show strutted on to the catwalk wearing decidedly unfashionable, dorky-looking glasses with cameras fitted into the frames. It was the surprise debut of Google Glass at New York Fashion Week, and it created plenty of buzz on technology and fashion blogs, but ultimately failed to take off. For a while, Glass was sold on e-commerce site Net-a-Porter, but in early 2015 sales were halted as Google took the project back to the drawing board.


Google is not the only technology company that has tried to woo the fashion elite. In September 2014, fashion insiders from around the world were invited to attend Apple's keynote introducing the Apple Watch, followed by a splashy dinner in Paris a few weeks later. Six months on from the big reveal, as the Watch became available to consumers, 12-page advertising spreads ran in US Vogue and high-profile people in the industry -- from Dior creative director Raf Simons to US Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour -- could be seen wearing the Watch.

But, soon afterwards, some fashionistas fell out of love with it. In a much-discussed critique in The New York Times, writer Vanessa Friedman proclaimed: "Why I'm Breaking Up with the Apple Watch", listing the reasons why she was sending the device back to Apple. "No matter how attractive the Apple Watch is in the context of other smartwatches or smartbands," she wrote, "no matter how much of an aesthetic advance its rounded corners and rectangular display, it still looks like a gadget."

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Apple and Google weren't alone in jumping on the wearables bandwagon. High-end brands such as Tory Burch and the cool kids at Opening Ceremony made forays into the smartband market in 2015. The buzz, however, has faded -- the devices either didn't provide any meaningful functionality or they were so unattractive that people simply didn't want to wear them.

Does this mean the love affair between fashion and technology is over?

Decidedly not. Wearable devices will be key to so-called "ubiquitous computing". And, as technology continues to advance in areas such as material science and nanotech, the real opportunity may be in so-called smart fabrics.


According to Gartner, whereas smartbands and watches represent a significant portion of the market for wearable technology (see health trackers such as Fitbit and multi-functional watches like the Apple Watch), the largest and fastest growing category is expected to be smart garments, which are predicted to grow from 100,000 units shipped in 2014 to 26 million units shipped in 2016. "Everyone is exploring wearable tech watches and headbands and looking at cool sneakers," David Lauren, Ralph Lauren's executive vice president for advertising, marketing and corporate communications told The New York Times. "We skipped to what we thought was new, which is apparel." The company unveiled technology-enabled tennis shirts, which monitored the heart rate, breathing and stress on ball boys and girls, at the US Open Tennis Championships in 2014. "Clothing should be our partner in getting through life," said Amanda Parkes of hybrid fashion-tech company Manufacture New York, to The Business of Fashion in November 2014. "It's up to us to define how we tap into the many modalities of the body through clothing as the interface to help us navigate the world, communicate, entertain or generally bring us greater understanding of ourselves. Wearable technology does not have to involve traditional circuits and batteries."

This approach -- making the technology invisible by shrinking it and embedding into the garment itself -- is also being extended to high fashion by designers such as Iris van Herpen, who operates at fashion's avant-garde. Van Herpen's autumn/winter 2015 ready-to-wear collection didn't focus on using technology for functional purposes, but rather on using technology-infused materials such as hand-burnished, translucent meta-weaves of stainless steel and silk to carve out an altogether new aesthetic territory.


This distinction is key. As soon as creation of wearable technology in fashion moves away from the gadget approach that has failed to resonate with consumers, it will enable the product to focus on aesthetic considerations, which are paramount in decisions about what people would like to wear.

Indeed, Google isn't giving up on wearable technology either. The technology giant is teaming up with Levi's on Project Jacquard, a fabric made up of yarns that can interact and communicate with smartphones and other personal digital devices.

How the smart-fabrics space will develop remains to be seen, but it's clear that the current focus on wearable gadgets is limiting the potential integration of fashion and technology.