High Fashion,High Tech

I received her message and photo in the back of a taxi,and replied,Lady Dior or dust. Five minutes later,she sent me a pic of a blue denim Lady Dior she was the proud owner of. And I was so proud of the technology that had just been used.

But by the time youve learned to pronounce Jean Paul Gaultier,fashion has moved notches up the technology tree. A new trend among fashion houses in the West is live streaming fashion shows,allowing customers read general public access to an erstwhile exclusive club and permitting them to make a credit-card purchase instantly. Thats right,no six-month wait. No trend-setting fashion magazines telling you whats hot in their opinion. Just you and the dress.

Live streaming means broadcasting an event live over the internet. And now that the Net is now on ones phone,theres no stopping us from shopping in the back of cabs too. Designers had avoided technology earlier to the point of online retail going bust,but a post-recession induced shopping wave has put all consumers on fashion show front rows. Marc Jacobs,Oscar de la Renta and several others streamed live videos of the New York Fashion Week on their websites and Facebook pages,and on fashion sites like style.com. Gareth Pughs spring/summer collection appeared on the brilliant showstudio.com and the designer sold limited edition pieces six months ahead of his regular deliveries. Topshop Unique sold directly from the catwalks.

The New York Times has reported on this fashion forward wave: Gucci will allow anyone to sign up to watch its show online,and will let viewers share live webcam videos as though they were playing with YouTube. Alexander Wang is projecting video of its show on a moving billboard in Manhattan,and Betsey Johnson is showing live Web versions of the show and the backstage frenzy before it. And in the most aggressive outreach,Burberry,the British design house,will not only stream its womens runway show live from London,but also will allow anyone with a computer and a credit card to order the merchandise as models strut in it.

When Burberry only had anointed buyers like Barneys,editors of top-end fashion magazines and actresses like Claire Danes,this time,besides their online access,they invited 1,500 customers to Burberry stores worldwide where they could watch the show on a screen and order merchandise immediately via an iPad application.

Louis Vuitton pioneered with a 360-degree catwalk show of S/S 11. The models were shot backstage after the show using 52 cameras to create a virtual rotating figure. The images were also available to view from every angle just hours after the show. Marc Jacobs tried this out first using his own image as the online invite to the show. A fashion show usually caters to the 1,000 happy few who are invited. This time,we were able to send over 7,00,000 invitations. Live comments were incredibly positive and we increased our fan base by 30 per cent in just a few days, says Antoine Arnault,Communications director,Louis Vuitton.

On March 10,fans of the Louis Vuitton Facebook page were able to watch the latest Marc Jacobs clothes streamed live from Paris Fashion Week,Vuitton also offered live broadcasts on the iPhone.

During 2009,luxury internet shopping grew by 20 per cent. Some of the biggest Web retailers believe that luxury sales will one day be bigger online than in real stores. In stores like Marni,they already are. Its a 24-hour shop, says Frederic Marchetti,founder of the Yoox group in a magazine interview. They manage designer sites including Marni,Valentino and Dolce amp; Gabbana. When net-a-porter.com was founded,Natalie Massenet intended to move fashion from a store to the desk. But today,its moved to waiting at your dentists clinic for a quick feel-good Furstenberg to distract you from the impending root canal. But mobile technology is the next big thing.

We are waiting for the penetration of better handsets and 3G services to get to a critical mass before launching streaming services, says Dheeraj Aggarwal,CEO and co-founder,Altruist Mobile2Win,a mobile applications provider that has just launched a video sharing platform for Indias masses. Fashion retail will definitely be a good business with streaming available on a chunk of handsets, he says.

Indian designers are both excited about the live streaming wave and wary of it. Anything that says Buy Now is always a great option, says designer Varun Bahl. But people die to see fashion shows and I feel the magic of the runway will be lost somewhere. His contemporary Gaurav Gupta points out that Alexander McQueen was the first to start live streaming,his last show before his death spring 8211; summer 2010 was streamed online. Its a great marketing exercise as it brings fashion closer to the masses, Gupta says. With technology advancing the way it is,it was bound to happen. Yes,Indian designers will catch on to this very soon.

Does live streaming make fashion personal or does it massify something thats exclusive? Gupta says it takes away the exclusivity of luxury. People might get overexposed or too bored by it,but its still the way to go. Its interesting to note that online shopping for fashion has yet to catch on in India in a big way. Even though almost all designer websites have online stores,not many are optimised. This is plainly due to lack of public knowledge or advertisement. There is also a school of thought that believes that the experience of in-store shopping adds value to the purchase,but these voices are waning way too fast.

More so in India when you arent in the two main metros,Delhi or Mumbai. There is too much money outside the metros and these ladies arent bored, says Wendell Rodricks,who is readying for an alcohol company-sponsored fashion show in Indore and Nagpur. Id never thought Id present a fashion show in Nagpur,but if they can drink fine liquor,they can wear my clothes.

Then there is the issue of copying too. The Tom Ford labels debut show last September didnt allow for live streaming as the designer said he didnt want to see his clothes in Hamp;M before his own stores. There are customers who want copied clothes and there are customers who want the real thing. Intellectual property rights are yet to evolve in India but aspirations need to be satisfied, says Gupta.