{"id":15722,"date":"2016-11-17T15:00:58","date_gmt":"2016-11-17T20:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/wearable-technology-moves-from-the-wrist-to-smarter-high-fashion\/"},"modified":"2016-11-18T16:55:23","modified_gmt":"2016-11-18T21:55:23","slug":"wearable-technology-moves-from-the-wrist-to-smarter-high-fashion","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/wearable-technology-moves-from-the-wrist-to-smarter-high-fashion\/","title":{"rendered":"Wearable Technology Moves From The Wrist To Smarter High Fashion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wearable technology is no longer only about the technology you put around your wrist. Gradually, it is more about the smart fashion that sends you notifications, helps you to get around the city or reflects your social media posts. Gartner estimated that 26 Million smart garments will be sold in 2016. [1]<\/a> Fashion houses realize that they need to adapt to the digitalization era and they proved it during the 2016 Met Gala, the biggest party of the fashion industry. This year Met Gala was sponsored by Apple and the dress code for the celebrities was \u201cManus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology\u201d.[2]<\/a> The biggest sensation on the red carpet was the IBM Watson \u201ccognitive dress\u201d that continually changed color based on the tweets on the social media.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wearable technology has been generally focused on the sports and fitness, but there are many emerging opportunities for smart clothing in the consumer fashion market. [3]<\/a> The sport enthusiasts and professional athletes were the primary target for wearable devices such as smart watches, smart shirts, smart bras, smart shoes. These devices were designed to track and measure different biological and physiological metrics.[4]<\/a> Soon, many more customers joined the market as they wanted to understand how their body works, use the data to improve performance or simply stay motivated and live a healthier life style. According to IDC, worldwide wearable market grew by 26.1% in Q2\u201916, reaching 22.5 Million shipments of devices in a single quarter.[5]<\/a> Despite the popularity and growth in sales the major vendors did not do much to make the smart wearables stylish.<\/p>\n

\"idc-wearables-copy\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In 2016 things start looking more chic than geek, as fashion designers partner with tech companies to bring stylish smart garments to the market. \u201cScreens, no screens, leather, semi-precious stones, 18k gold, nothing is too much for this new batch of stylish wearable technology.\u201d[6]<\/a> One of the smart garments is the Navigates Jacket that navigates you around the town by tapping you on your shoulders, telling you when to turn left and right. [7]<\/a> Another blend of fashion and tech are the Ringly bracelets and rings that change color according to your outfit, connect to your phone via Blutetooth and let you receive customized color coded notifications. Ringly is also partnering with Mastercard for contactless payment.[8]<\/a><\/p>\n

\"navigate_media_3_web\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n