Late post, and no picture today, first of all because my Google-fu is not sufficient to find me a picture of a robot wearing a dress (this will become clear later, and the first person to send me one not from The Jetsons will get Dress A Day swag) and secondly because I am slightly tired. I went (as is my wont when I am in NYC on a Wednesday) roller-skating at the Roxy last night and when they turn the bass up to "defibrillate" I find myself unable to stop skating and leave at a reasonable hour. (The Roxy got hip! I am resisting the urge to complain loudly about how I've been going there forEVER–I even have my own skates, which I keep in NYC–and how the hipsters and noobs are ruining it. 'Cause they're not! It was actually fine, once I got through the line at the door. A few more crashes and collisions than usual, but nobody took me out, so that's okay.)
Anyway. Why was I going to post a picture of a robot wearing a dress? Because I want to talk about The Future of Fashion. There have been other posts in the Countdown to Fashion Week that talk about disintermediation (that is, cutting out the middleman), the need for virtual fashion shows, faster fashion cycles and greater consumer feedback — and I think all those things are inevitable.
In fact, in my dream world of the future, I'm not hoping for space tourism, food pills, and personal jetpacks (okay, I'm still crossing my fingers for the jetpacks). I am excited about infinite customization, smart (or even nano) manufacturing, and efficient marketplaces. If I want something (say, a pair of round-toed 2" heels with an ankle strap, in brown suede, or a lemon-yellow silk/Lycra short-sleeved cardigan sweater with a peter pan collar, pearl buttons, and 3/4 sleeves), I just spec it (including exact dimensions) and put it up for bids through an electronic matchmaking service. Manufacturers and designers will automatically send me price offers: who can make it for what price, in what time? Do they already have something close they think I'll like better? I'll weigh the offers depending on how fast or exact I want it, and whether or not I want to maintain rights to my design, release it under a Creative Commons, charity-benefit, or some other kind of license, or hand it over to the manufacturer in return for product.
I'm thinking the designing process will be much like an Identikit suspect sketch — you start with a template that you tweak by saying "not so much here" or "a little tighter there". You'd choose a color with a Pantone chart! (I can't tell you how much I wish clothing and accessory manufacturers would list Pantone colors so that I could search for things that are my favorite color green, for instance.)
People who don't want to design their own clothes (and really, do those people actually exist?) will "shop" by watching online fashion shows and getting feeds of what's new and hot right to their browsers. There are things like this happening right now, on a limited scale, mostly a few measurements and size and feature options. Custom Nikes. Custom sizing of pants at Land's End. Think of how Threadless.com works — some people design t-shirts, members of the community vote on them, and then the winners get printed up. Or CafeShops, where you upload your image to use on everything from totebags to thongs. Imagine that for handbags. Imagine that for shoes. Imagine that for every possible garment, plus the option to get one-offs made just for you!
You'd think this would kill retail, wouldn't you? But think of a store where you walk in, look around, select something and customize it to your size and preferred color right on the spot. You'd still be able to buy off the rack — for a premium. Everyone else would come back the next day (or wait for it to come in the mail) to grab their perfectly-fitting, color-matched, personalized garment.
The savings on the manufacturing side would be wonderful. No more guessing how many people are going to want the red in size 2 or the black in size 16. Much less waste. Much less shipping of product back and forth, from factory to store to outlet mall. (Maybe no more sprawling suburban soul-killing outlet malls!) Plus the chance to tweak designs immediately based on customer feedback and take advantage of fads instantly.
All of this, of course, depends on new fabrication methods that don't require tons of *different* raw materials — essentially nanotechnology and desktop fab. Technology that isn't really proven and has a long way to go. But considering how far other technologies have come just in my lifetime (computers, cellphones, the whole friggin' Internet) you have to hope that infinite customization is just around the corner. I'm willing to sacrifice the jetpack, even …
A Dress A Day 
Well I like sewing, so I will take the jetpack over the custoization. Except in shoes. Shoes are the hardest to find.
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I went to Flickr and searched for robot and dress. I got:http://www.flickr.com/photos/brimley/56998908/Best I could come up with unless I make it myself.
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That’s pretty much my dream for the future of fashion, too. Except that I’d want the ability to have a 3-D scan taken of vintage garments, then have them re-created in fabrics & colors of my choosing. (And yes, I’m willing to skip the jetpack for this future, too.)
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Oh! And Robot in a Dress: http://www.tokyotimes.org/archives/dancing_robot.jpg
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I don’t know if this really counts as a dress, but the robot in the back has a collar that’s pretty awesome… it’s kind of how she’s built, though: http://jovan.ru/pics2/bender.gifAnd here’s a robot in a tutu. Close, at least: http://www.dvd.net.au/movies/f/04019-2.jpg
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Sorry, Erin. While you will undoubtedly be able to get your clothes customized as per your dream, it’s likely going to be at the expense of some woefully underpaid sewing machine operator. Clothes aren’t like bridges; you can’t pop a sweater out like a steel rod. Kathleen Fasanella, at http://www.fashion-incubator.com, explains it much better than I ever could.You can get the shoes made, though. It’s not that difficult (more information on that at lunchtime). What I really want, of course, is fast and cheap interplanetary travel, leading to interplanetary trade – there are probably hundreds of galaxies full of exciting fabrics out there, and I want them!
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Bella — no, really, I swear — they are now working on things that are basically 3-d fax machines. You put in the specs and it’s assembled from basically goo. The idea is that eventually you’ll be able to spec at the molecular level. No more sweatshop labor (of course, what work those poor folks will do then is also a problem).One of the reasons I sew, although a small one, is to reduce the amount of sweatshop labor that goes into what I wear. Please do tell about the shoes!I’m right with you on the alien fabrics, though. 🙂
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Here’s a pretty ugly one for you: Robot in a Dress
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This is *sort of* a robot in a dress, although I guess the dress is kind of part of the robot herself, which basically makes sense:http://flickr.com/photos/hillarylang/19791271/in/set-463804/
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Erin, I’ve seen the machines in action that you describe (I’m pretty sure), although I think of them as “3-D copy machines” rather than fax machines. While they are capable of producing “made things”, it’s doubtful whether or not they’ll be able to make garments, because of the nature of handling fabric. It would be so nice, though, to stand in a machine and just get scanned and have a garment turn up that fits just right …Have you been to Kathleen’s website? As far as I’m concerned, she is THE site to visit for anyone who’s truly serious about producing garments. She tells all the facts about manufactured clothing that none of the so-called experts in all their books (which I’ve bought by the carload)ever, ever share.
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I love Kathleen’s site! Her book is on my to-buy list. Those machines are coming. Science Fiction never lies. 🙂
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This would be far too expensive and illogical in the real world, as far as designers making your designs, one at a time.I went through the beginning process of getting my own handbag designs made, to sell. The manufacturers wanted high minimums of products to make at once, and this was expensive, but it cut their costs, and cuts costs of each product, considerably.The pattern, the material, the design effort, etc. all in very short supply = expensive. Much time put in, much money spent, for one garment. There is no, this is great, now let’s make tons. There’s no real potential for profit.Plus there’s the tricky little problem that “designers” are making YOUR original design, why would they want to do that?I would love for this to happen with handbags, though, I would.Realistically, specs matching searches could happen, but it would just be a more sophisticated version of ways we can search stores, like Zappos, right now.I don’t know how Nike works with making their custom sneakers. But Threadless has a vote on which designs to make, because making everyone’s won’t equal selling, right? And Caf Press manufactures mass shirts with a printed on design; pretty cheap.What can you do? Mix and match. Shop on the Internet and exhaust all its resources. You could even make your own tees on Caf Press and only sell them to yourself. And finally, get a good tailor for the perfect fit.
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And who is Kathleen?
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Wallflower, per the comments above, Kathleen is: “Kathleen Fasanella, at http://www.fashion-incubator.com,””As far as I’m concerned, she is THE site to visit for anyone who’s truly serious about producing garments. She tells all the facts about manufactured clothing that none of the so-called experts in all their books (which I’ve bought by the carload)ever, ever share.”See? Just because my comments are long, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t read them. 🙂
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