A
bout a year and a half back, the showcasing of an innovation at the
Shanghai Fashion Week took the world by storm. The surprise and
awe with which the technology was received both there at the event
as well as later in the fashion media was evident in one aspect: that
the fashion world had not seen it coming. The tech world, on the other
hand, had only been waiting for it to finally happen.
Independent label Babyghost was showcasing its 2017 Spring and Summer
collection at Shanghai in April 2016, by partnering with Shanghai-based Blockchain-
as-a-Service (BaaS) company, BitSE, and its VeChain project. Yet it was not the glitzy
display that had everyone taken in, but the mere understanding that the world of
fashion was changing too fast to keep track of. Some things would change before
you know it, and some innovations can knock the wind out of your sails. But that is
exactly what happens when the digital world begins to drive fashion—real fast, with
the new catchphrase to know being FashTech.
The possibilities of how blockchain is going to—no, not ‘may’ anymore—change
the textiles and apparel industry has since dominated discussions at fashion
events. But it is not the only technological development that is being talked
about; there’s omnichannel, data intelligence, social analytics, product lifecycle
management, logistics, printing, and more. Those can all be summed up in one
word: digitalisation, or digitisation as some would say.
Increasingly, it is digital technology that is driving the fashion industry, and FashTech
is what it is.
Block it at Your Own Peril
The heavily-attended Babyghost-VeChain show at Shanghai told stories: those of
the 20 models with the 20 new looks. The audience could scan the chip that was
embedded in each clothing and immediately receive an interactive memory of who
had originally modelled the garment. The name of the technology was not new; it
was blockchain, the same futuristic technology behind the Bitcoin and Ethereum
innovations that has kept the financial world on its toes.
Blockchain, few
would even dare
to disagree, is all
set to become
the disruptive
technology of the
days to come. But
how far it will go
in becoming an
all-pervasive reality
would depend on
far too many other
factors, including
political. In a
globalised world
where a supply
chain cuts through
countries—
sometimes back
and forth—
intergovernmental
agreements may be
the deciding factor.
BitSE’s cutting edge VeChain innovation is essentially a cloud product management solution integrated with blockchain
technology that puts unique IDs on the blockchain and can verify if an item is genuine or not.
NOVEMBER 2017 FIBRE 2 FASHION | 41