Future of Fashion

What is the future of fashion? Where are we going with it? We will always wear clothes. But in what sense and in what way when we talk about fashion and the future.

Alexander McQueen

Solar Jacket by Lapidus

Hussein Chalayan

Fashion

I predict fashion will equate minimalism with knock-out ensembles and accessories. I believe we will settle for more simpler but elegant and durable fabrics with clean lines and shapes of designs. A trend that is likely to resurface as a underground subcultural feature is DIY fashion in which anything goes. These groups exist outside of rules or trends Metallics, loose knits, latex, shells, wiring, anything,  you name it.

Fashion Houses

Current fashion houses will either evolve or close down. The closure of many fashion houses will affect the fashion industry as we see it now, to make way for newer and younger design houses who are very niche in their design. This new generation of designers will be more technology savvy. This designers will have to do more with with less as decline in consumerism progresses. They will work with different types of high tech fabrics, different workforce resources and different type of consumers compared to what we have now. The fashion industry will still be fragmented as it is now but the fragmentation will be obvious in terms of subcultural groups and geographical areas. underground dominatrix v upper class, working groups v slummers e.t.c. Basically choose a group and direct your limited resources at it.

Technology

The phrase "Smarter way of doing things" will define the growing relationship between fashion and technology..  In the future, there will be more to come, more than we can ever conceive right now. Smart clothing to charge smart phones, solar powered clothing that wirelessly connects with other gadgets or even the internet to download information and your clothing will go as far to warm and cool you down using infra red technology and you may even be able to set your clothing to room temperature. We will possibly have rain, stain, chemical and more shockingly a fire repellent outfit. With technology, our clothing will be more functional that it's ever been. We may even have holographic outfits that makes you think a naked person is actually wearing clothes. Won't it be nice if the holographic device malfunctions.


Production

Production of designs will be faster than ever before but there will be a decline in fast fashion as the quality and functionality of clothing increases. Another key factor to affect fashion production is the workforce behind production. As desirable skills change, this will cause a decrease in popularity of industrial labour. Popular destination for production will change to another country. You can't always tell what country is going to have the next boom in economical production but whatever country it is, it will greatly affect fashion production as we know it. So example, if this has a lower working population than China, production will slow down, if they have different means of production and material sourcing, fashion production will be affected.i.e. flooding in Pakistan affected the price of cotton around the world. The world is more connected than ever before. Just imagine how connected we will be in the future.


Fashion exhibitions and Editorials
Fashion exhibitions and editorials will be more interactive. Just think of the model on your weekly issue of vogue moving around on the the front cover of the magazine. Ok, maybe a little exaggerated but it's not impossible with lenticular technology. I think interactivity will take the form of your tablets and mini laptops. There will be a decline in hard copy fashion publications. Your weekly issue and fashion shows and exhibitions can be simply viewed online. The rise in popularity of online publications can be linked to increasing environmental sustainability awareness and need for faster access to information