2015 Gala Sneak Peek: Phi Illuminated Designs
Video by Paul Spenard
Designers Kenzie Housego and Stacey Morgan return this year and collaborate with engineer Sophie Amin on innovative wearable technology. Enjoy the sneak peek, their dresses will be on the runway on March 28, 2015 at Telus Spark in Calgary.
Be the first to see this live! Purchase tickets to the 2015 gala now.
2015 Gala Sneak Peek: Virtually Vogue
Video by Paul Spenard
Designers Catherine Hazin, Dianne Gibson and Kelly Hofer team up with engineer Dan Damron to create bridal garments for our wearable technology fashion show.
Be the first to see this live! Purchase tickets to the 2015 gala now.
2015 Gala Sneak Peek: Eos and Nyx
Video by Paul Spenard
Emerging designer Zoe Klintberg and engineer Kevin Loney team up to create this beautiful garment that will be featured at the third annual wearable technology fashion show.
Borrowing from Greek mythology, the Éōs & Nyx project embodies the ancient story of transformation from the night sky into the dawn. When both pieces are worn together the Nyx (night) cloak twinkles with real-time constellations and moon phase, while the Éōs (dawn) dress remains lightless and asleep beneath. But once Nyx is removed, the stars and moon go dark and Éōs slowly begins an awakening from dark purples and reds, to brighter pinks and oranges, until finally the sun pendant bursts into golden life and the dress glows with animations
of real-time weather.
Be the first to see this live! Purchase tickets to the 2015 gala now.
February Wearable Technology Roundup
Hello, friends! It’s been a while since the last post, at MakeFashion we’ve been crazy busy getting projects together for our biggest event, our 2015 MakeFashion Gala! Save the date, March 28th, 2015, wearable technology will grace Calgary for one memorable night! Make sure you get you keep an eye out for ticket sales! You won’t want to miss it!
From designers to the blind wearables have had a busy few months. It’s insane how quickly the wearable movement has spread, so here are a few of the latest wearable news.
Michael Kors chief executive, John Idol, hinted interest in joining the wearables world earlier this week. With lip stick tubes and compact mirrors that double as phone chargers in talks, the fashion empire is still deciding if wearables is the next step they should take with the MK logo. It’s still up in the air the fashion company opting to take it slow.
Researchers at Oxford University have developed new smart glasses using 3D camera technology that have the potential to help blind people see! The glasses use a 3D camera and computer that detect the outline of a nearby object, which helps with depth perception and facial recognition. For roughly $750, which isn’t such an onerous cost considering the amount of technology used.
Researches and designers aren’t the only ones testing the wearable technology waters. Musician, Imogen Heap, has created her own wearable tech company, Mi Mu, and is working towards a future to music where electronic music can be played with flicks of the wrist. With music making gloves it’ll give audiences the power to physically see a musician perform adding to the already emotional and intense feels in the crowd. Electronic musicians can put on the gloves and make various movements with their hands which the glove registers as a different introduction to music software, talk about magic fingers.
Although Calgary is home to MakeFashion, the Globe and Mail has named Toronto a hotbed of pioneering wearable technology. IDC Canada recently came up with a report that looked at the Canadian wearable market from 2014-2018 and expects to see a growth over the next five years. Juniper Research also reports that the wearable tech retail revenue could reach $19-billion worldwide by 2018, up from $1.4-billion in 2013.
Wearable technology may need to be invisible if they will be successful, designers say. Designers and researchers are looking at ways to make wearable technology blend into users daily lives. Armstrip, a heart rate activity tracker is going in that direction. The tracker is designed to be stick to the wearer’s torso like a Band-Aid and left there for up to seven days at a time. Once you’re done with it, it can be taken off and recharged for further use.
From Gopros attached to uniforms that give viewers an up close view of their favourite sports to caps that monitor head impact during games. Wearables are really changing the way athletes play and how coaches monitor their teams agility, strength, and health. We’re coming into a new area where wearable technology could potentially be used to save lives on the field. Wearable technology also gives an option for fans to get so much more invested in the game, with insight to the players by monitoring stats on the field and in practice.
Despite claims that technology is having a negative impact on intimacy, tech entrepreneurs are confident that advances in wearable technology will improve peoples sex lives and you won’t even need to be in the same room as your partner. From software that allows users to interact physically via the Internet in a kind of pseudo reality experience of sex, and apps that lets users to experience sex from their partner’s point of view, even sex is getting an update of sorts.
From miracles to bizarreness, wearbles have really tapped into new areas of life. Whether you buy into the idea of wearable technology, it looks like it’s here to stay. As a wearable fashion blog, we might be a bit biased when we say that we couldn’t be more pleased!
– Article by Mary Yohannes Getaneh, a second year Journalism student at Mount Royal University and our MakeFashion intern.
MakeCocktails 2014
Last Saturday was filled with tantalizing drinks, lights, belly dancing, and a great community. It sounds like a strange combination, but it works well! So here’s a quick over view of what went down.
Partnered with Absolut Canada, we hosted our second MakeCocktails event at the Endeavor Art Gallery. Absolut Canada was in attendance making delicious cocktails throughout the night. This event gave a very unique view into the inner workings of MakeFashion with beautiful live makeup and hair transformations by Jason Mellor and Ivonne Arsenault throughout the night. Models graced the floor, posing and twirling around wearing some favorite pieces from previous years’ shows. The event concluded with a beautiful and exotic bellydance performance that energized the audience.
We also announced our kickstarter campaign for the Nebula digital pendant. Saturday night we were at zero and today we are only a few hundred dollars short of our goal, so a big thank you to this wonderful community that wants to see makers thrive in our city. If you are interested in donating, you can right here!
We’d like to give a big thanks to Absolut Vodka, all our fabulous volunteers, and the MakeFashion crew for making MakeCocktails a success. MakeFashion is a continuous collaboration with organizers, makers, and most importantly, the community.
Keep posted for more events, monthly blog posts, and more!
Cheers yyc
– Photography and article by Mary Yohannes Getaneh, a second year Journalism student at Mount Royal University and our MakeFashion intern.
November Wearable Technology Roundup
It seems like every month when I find out what’s new in the wearable technology world there seems to be an abundance of information that’s constantly coming out. For the most part wearable technology is new, and everyone has something to say about it. The world is watching as fashion and technology dance around each other. The latest news is that wearable technology is estimated that total global shipments will meet 52 million by the end of 2014, according to wearable.com.
For a long time it seemed as if the wearable technology community would never be able to live the Google Glass down. The infamous glasses resulted in the idea that all wearable technology is ugly. The Huffington Post would beg to differ; they recently curated the most stylish wearable technology trends on the market!
Some of my personal favorites are the Tory Burch Fit Tracker collaboration- super trendy coming in gold, silver, and rose gold and it tracks down your steps. Pair it with any outfit and you are good to go.
The Ralph Lauren Biometric shirt, it’s really one of the first clothing articles on the market that incorporate technology in the pieces. A conductive thread is woven into the shirt that measures your heart rate, stress levels, and breathing levels, which you can then plug into your smart device and viola. It’s simple and sleek and very useful.
Lastly, Ringly. It’s an 18K gold ring that syncs up with your smartphone to deliver notifications that range from calendar reminders to emails! They came in a variety of colours; the onyx and emerald are my personal favorite!
Manhattan recently hosted Make: Wearables Projects on the Runway at Engadget Expand, where eighteen designers came up with impressive wearable technologies. There was an array of fashionable pieces that incorporated high tech pieces like kinetics, light, 3D printing, data logging, and data visualization. As well as the incredible skill it took to think up and create each piece. The work from the eighteen designers really pushes the boundaries beyond what wearable technology is and what it could be.
Now a lot of the news about fashion technology has to deal with fashion but recently there has been some interesting change that wearable technology could bring to the medical world. Intel announced the winners of its Make It Wearable contest, early last week, where wannabe gadget developers competed for more than $1 million in funding for their projects.
Second place went to Bristol based start up team, Open Bionics, who came up with a fully functioning prosthetic hand using 3D printers. The hand is made up of inexpensive, lightweight materials and costs a small fraction of other mechanical hands currently in the market. With an Open Bionics’ hand, wearers will be able to grasp and manipulate objects, operate the fingers individually, and can even type on a keyboard. The hand is controlled by reading responses from the muscle movements in the wearer’s forearm.
And lastly, a new form of wearable technology could help improve the communication between humans and dogs. With the help of a harness that is fitted with sensors, owners will be able to monitor both the posture and vital signs of their fur babies. This new wearable tech was designed in the US, and also contains vibrating motors so that owners can communicate with their dogs even if it’s out of sight. Which could definitely improve working with dogs.
It’s been a good couple of months for wearable technology, and we’re very excited for what is happening in the wearable’s community. Be sure to check out more of the wearable’s roundups next month, and to make sure to get your ticket to the MakeCocktails event, November 22, I hear it’s going to be a very delicious night!
– Article by Mary Yohannes Getaneh, a second year Journalism student at Mount Royal University and our MakeFashion intern.
2015 Gala Date Announced!
Update: Location announced and tickets now available! Telus Spark: 220 St Georges Dr NE, Calgary, AB
Requesting media passes? Information here.
Thanks to those who attended our launch event in Calgary! Our launch event is our kick-off for the year, and our teams are now working hard on their 2015 wearable tech pieces.
We’ve announced the date for our 2015 gala. The gala will take place on March 28th 2015 at Telus Spark. Tickets will be available soon, follow us on twitter at @makefashionca and on Facebook for details. The last two years have sold out, so we expect our third year will as well!
We rely on our team of volunteers, so if you’re interested in volunteering, contact info@makefashion.ca for more information.
We will also be touring after the event. Last year our pieces toured around the globe including Shenzhen (China), Rome, New York, and Las Vegas. If you’re interested in showcasing MakeFashion at your event, contact info@makefashion.ca – our pieces always draw a crowd and media attention! We are also accepting sponsors and partners.
We look forward to seeing you on March 28th and at future events!
photo by Andras Schram
2014/2015 Launch Party Wrap-Up
In a sea of motorcycle displays we at MakeFashion set up our launch party at the Endeavor Arts Gallery. And it was as awesome as it sounds.
The MakeFashion launch event is the annual kick-off to the year. It was a very simple and at times very inspiring and emotional as the creators of MakeFashion reflected on how far MakeFashion has come since it’s creation in 2012.
The show started with Shannon Hoover explaining how MakeFashion fit into their lives in the past year. From China to New York to recently Rome, MakeFshion has been gaining attention from the global community. The team reflected on how it’s awesome to see so many creators and innovators being recognized globally, especially since the initiative started right here in Calgary.
For the first time ever Calgary is the one teaching the world about fashion and technology, in a way that’s never been done before.
Shannon also mentioned that Absolut Vodka would be sponsoring the MakeFashion MakeCocktails event so save the date! Those cocktails won’t wait up for you, if we can help it!
After Shannon gave his touching speech the floor was directed to Jeff de Boer, creator of tech ties. Funnily enough this was the one event that Shannon, known for sporting a tech tie or two, did not wear the tech tie. Did he drop the ball? We leave that up to you to decide!
Jeff spoke of all the wonderful things that the tech tie could do from self-changing design patterns to telling the time. If a tie could do all that and more we’d never judge men again for owning only one tie. Because if you’re going to own a tie, might as well own a tie that plays music.
Patti Derbyshire of Torch Motorcycles spoke next. Torch Motorcycles is a new brand of motorcycles that are designed for women. Even cooler, it’s a Calgarian company! Patti gave a quick overview of fabulous women in history who defied society and rode motorcycles. It was not only enlightening speech, it was very powerful.
Next Chelsea Klukas took the stage; Chelsea is one of the founding members of MakeFashion. She asked the question what makes technology fashionable and cool? And not surprisingly Google Glass did not make the list.
And finally, what you’ve all been waiting for the design team and the designs was announced for MakeFashion 2015. Sneak peeks of designer sketches were revealed which will be posted online as we lead up to the event.
So there you go! Another wonderful event as concluded for us at MakeFashion. If you are bummed that you missed this opportunity to party with the MakeFashion crew, don’t worry November 22nd is our MakeCocktails event! It’s everything you could ever want in an event: educational, fun, and delicious! You won’t want to miss it!
– Photography and article by Mary Yohannes Getaneh, a second year Journalism student at Mount Royal University and our MakeFashion intern.
Help send Illuminated Vintage to Rome MakerFaire!
Stacey and Kenzie, creators of Illuminated Vintage have been invited to MakerFaire Rome. The team has created an Indiegogo campaign to help cover the expenses of travel and shipping their pieces.
“Since the 2014 show, many of the outfits themselves have been presented at MakerFaire’s and wearable tech events, in San Francisco, Calgary, and Shenzhen, China. Sadly we the designers have never been able to travel with the “Illuminated Vintage” collection on these showcase adventures.”
Perks for sponsoring include free workshops, illuminated jewelry and custom-made hairpieces by the Illuminated Vintage team.
