Google Glass Meets Fashion, Smart Glasses To Be Part Of DVF Fashion Show
Google Glass — Google's smart glasses project — is heading into the new world of fashion. Designer Diane von Furstenberg and others have been using them to record preparations for the upcoming DVF Spring 2013 Fashion Show …
Context & Ripple Effects
Project Glass has been a tech story so far: Google's first video sample in May 2012 framed the headset as an engineering demo shot from the wearer's point of view. The DVF Spring 2013 show changes the frame — confirmed reporting has Diane von Furstenberg and other designers using Glass to record show preparations, with Google partnering directly on the event itself.
The pickup was unusually broad for a single fashion-week item — CNET, ABC News, BuzzFeed, Business Insider, The Next Web, 9to5Google and others all ran it on or about September 10, 2012 — which suggests Google succeeded in making Glass a culture story, not just a gadget story.
First-order effects
- The DVF Spring 2013 runway gives Glass its first mainstream public appearance on non-engineers, testing how the device reads when worn by people in the fashion world rather than Googlers.
- Diane von Furstenberg gains first-mover status among designers on wearable hardware, with her brand attached to Glass's public image at a formative moment.
Second-order effects
- Other fashion houses now face a choice between sitting out wearables or cutting their own partnerships, since the first designer alliance sets the template for who lends credibility to whom.
- For Google, a fashion-world endorsement addresses the gap its May 2012 demo left open — the question of whether anyone would actually want to be seen wearing the thing.
Third-order effects
- If runway adoption proves out, eyewear becomes a category where designer partnerships and aesthetics, not specifications, decide which headsets reach consumers' faces.
- The pattern points toward hardware launches being staged through cultural gatekeepers — fashion weeks, not developer conferences — as the default route to mainstream acceptance.
The trend: Consumer wearables are shifting from engineering demos to fashion-led positioning, with designer partnerships serving as the credibility mechanism for getting cameras onto faces.