From Richard Nicoll and Disney's 'Tinkerbell' LED dress on the catwalks in 2014, to 3D body scanning for the perfect clothing fit, London College of Fashion has been pioneering research into how digital technology can be used in fashion to outstanding effect.
Digital at LCF
London College of Fashion is always striving to explore new digital territories within fashion. Students experiment with technology in LCF's Digital Anthropology Lab and Digital Learning Lab. They learn to be innovators through experimentation
Digital Anthropology Lab: London College of FashionLondon College of Fashion
Digital Anthropology Lab
Experimentation
Students are encouraged to explore digital capacities in their work and experimentation is routed in the curriculum, particularly at MA level.
London College of Fashion and Microsoft Surface BookLondon College of Fashion
Students have the opportunity to work with cutting edge technology. In 2016, BA (Hons) Fashion Illustration students were asked to try out the latest Microsoft Surface Book before it hit the shops...
Collaboration
Fashion and tech collides in the classrooms and labs at the point where students and researchers begin to share their skills and experiences. LCF's MA courses include a collaborative unit where students from different subject areas get to work together on projects. Find out about some of the projects...
Digital Anthropology Lab
Digital Anthropology Lab hosted a student project working with key industry mentors from the fashion-tech sector. The brief was ‘No Hands: how can you interact with technologies without using touch screens.’ #nohandslcf
Team Ground Control present a fluid and experiential future for bespoke. Using ferrofluid to move and grow with the wearer’s shoes, they create an immersive retail theatre, as unique as your footprint.
Team Ground Control was formed by students: Jo Cope (MA Fashion Artefact), Tegan Power, (MA Fashion Footwear), Chaolun Zhang (MA Strategic Fashion Marketing).
Digital Anthropology Lab
Digital Anthropology Lab hosted a student project working with key industry mentors from the fashion-tech sector. The brief was ‘No Hands: how can you interact with technologies without using touch screens.’ #nohandslcf
Team Catalyst presented a sensory and emotionally responsive vision of a future smart skin, inspired by biomimicry to detect proximity and alleviate stress in our crowded urban spaces.
Team Catalyst was formed by students: Yancey Chen (MA Fashion Artefact), Smriti Gupta, (MA Strategic Fashion Marketing), Bei Zhang (MA Fashion Artefact).
The finished product
Explore some of the innovative designs and products that have come out of LCF collaborations. Whether it be a collaboration between designer and tech brand, organised by LCF's Fashion Innovation Agency, or an item made in our labs, the range of output is diverse.
Dress made from Nokia phones for Fyodor Golan (2014) by Fyodor GolanLondon College of Fashion
Nokia partnered with design duo, Fyodor Golan, for London Fashion Week, to create the world’s first interactive skirt made up of Nokia Lumia 1520 smartphones. Head of Fashion Innovation Agency at LCF, Matthew Drinkwater initiated the idea and introduced the phone company to the emerging designers.
FIA Fyodor Golan x Microsoft (2015) by Fyodor GolanLondon College of Fashion
Microsoft and Fyodor Golan collaborated yet again to combine smart technology and fashion to reinvent the catwalk show. By combining images captured live on the Lumia 830 smartphones to augment style and mediate reality with advanced CGI technology, the show was projected in real time onto screens within the catwalk- merging fashion and smart technology to connect the audience with the modern collection.
FIA EMMA J SHIPLEY X MESHMERISE (2016) by Emma ShipleyLondon College of Fashion
The Fashion Innovation Agency (FIA) helped bring to life an exciting new app called ‘Scarfi’ that allowed users to virtually try on Emma J Shipley’s stunning scarves from her AW16 collection before they buy. The app created by Meshmerise in collaboration with Emma J Shipley and the FIA, used virtual reality to bring Emma’s designs to life through animation.
London College of Fashion - digital fashionLondon College of Fashion
Digital at LCF
A Digital showcase by LCF, for London Tech Week.
Richard Nicoll SS15 Tinkerbell Dress (2015) by Richard Nicoll and London Fashion Laboratory Studio XOLondon College of Fashion
Perhaps one of the beacons of wearable tech, was Richard Nicoll's SS15 Tinkerbell dress that he designed in collaboration with XO Studio and Disney, initiated by FIA. This elegant and subtle creation showed how clunky wearable tech was being replaced with sophisticated mechanics and nuanced design.
Fashion Innovation Agency
Digital Anthropology Lab
MA Fashion Futures
MA Fashion Entrepreneurship and Innovation
