Imagine a world where tech nerds dictate the latest fashion trends. What would a world like that look like? What clothes do you think that we would wear? Which colors would be hot and which colors would be totally out of style? Weird, isn’t it? What if I told you that it is already happening all around us with some help of cognitive computing.
Cognitive computing tries to mimic the way a human thinks through self-improving algorithms, pattern recognition and natural language processing (Marr, 2017). A supercomputer that is currently changing the fashion industry by using cognitive computing is IBM’s Watson. Watson uses deep learning algorithms and neural networks to process information. The more data the system has, the faster and more accurate is becomes. By using a decision-making tree the supercomputer will come up with a solution to solve any problem (Marr, 2017).
But how is this supercomputer trying to change the fashion industry? Well in 2016 the computer designed a dress together with fashion house Marchesa for the prestigious Mett Ball. Watson analyzed a considerable amount of data to find the perfect fabric for the dress. Through pattern recognition it also came up with a perfect color for the dress. It analyzed previous dresses worn to the Mett Ball (IBM Cognitive Stories, 2017). If you’re not amazed already, you surely will be after this fun fact: the dress could change color by analyzing tweets of hundreds of Mett Ball fans. The dress had LED lamps attached to it and the color would change depending on the emotions in the tweets. Rose meant joy, coral stood for passion, aqua indicated excitement, lavender represented curiosity, and butter showed encouragement (Bain, 2017).
Furthermore, together with Australian designer Jason Grech IBM launched its first cognitive collection. Watson analyzed thousands of images to come up with the design of 12 dresses (Anon, 2017). Designer Jason Grech is also very passionate about architecture; not only did he feed Watson images of dresses, he also used pictures of his favorite buildings. Watson blended everything to come up with a lovely collection (Spolini, 2017).
The fashion industry definitely has to look out for Watson. He might be the next big thing.
Marr, B. (2017). Forbes Welcome. [online] Forbes.com. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2016/03/23/what-everyone-should-know-about-cognitive-computing/#5c11a5ab5088 [Accessed 23 Sep. 2017].
IBM Cognitive Stories. (2017). IBM Cognitive Stories – Marchesa with Watson. [online] Available at: https://www.ibm.com/watson/stories/dress.html [Accessed 24 Sep. 2017].
Bain, M. (2017). IBM Watson co-designed the most high-tech dress at the Met Gala. [online] Quartz. Available at: https://qz.com/674342/ibm-watson-co-designed-the-most-high-tech-dress-at-the-met-gala/ [Accessed 24 Sep. 2017].
Anon, (2017). IBM The Cognitive Collection. [online] Available at: https://www.ibm.com/cognitive/au-en/fashion/index.html [Accessed 24 Sep. 2017].
Spolini, N. (2017). Cognitive Computing supports fashion designer. [online] Vogue.it. Available at: http://www.vogue.it/en/vogue-talents/news/2017/03/29/watson-ibm-jason-grech-marchesa-the-north-face/ [Accessed 24 Sep. 2017].
Trendz, S. (2017). <center>IBM Watson turns designer, collaborates with Marchesa to create a cognitive dress : MET Gala 2016</center>. [online] Stylefluidtrendz.blogspot.nl. Available at: http://stylefluidtrendz.blogspot.nl/2016/05/ibm-watson-turns-designer-collaborates.html [Accessed 24 Sep. 2017].
Dear Stephanie,
First of all thank you for your interesting contribution. I was indeed shaken by the fact that the dress was designed by a computer. How quickly do you think this will become mainstream?
Thank you!
Hi Lorence,
Thank you for your reply. I think that it will take a while before this will become mainstream, because the fashion industry is a pretty old-fashioned one.
Designs are made by top designers that took years to grow their reputation, so to replace them will be quite hard.
But this can be a solution for fashion companies that are focussed on fast and cheap fashion like H&M. So they can design a lot and very fast.
Hope this answers your question.
Very interesting article!!
Thank you!