Kleidung für zwei

Context: digital fashion

Are digital garments as we know them today ready for the next step, ready to be worn in our augmented reality future? And are we ready to walk around with AR outfits? This is the key theme of the "Kleidung für Zwei" project. Digital fashion has gotten better and better in recent years. Because virtual fabrics can now respond faithfully to the shapes and movements of the wearer, it's getting difficult to distinguished AR fashion from physical fashion. Visually, that is. Obviously, the feeling is different. But without the barriers of the physical, virtual fashion offers a unique freedom that is even more relevant in a semi-digital world than in a 'metaverse world'. No one is surprised about the infinite possibilities of a virtual world. But digital fashion in AR opens up a world of new possibilities. Beyond the temporary endgoal of realism, mimicking real fabrics, lies the opportunity for freestyle explorations. Outfits that don't care about our physical characteristics, for example. As an iconic example, "Kleidung für Zwei" therefore presents a series of outfits that can be worn by several people at the same time. Without an uncomfortable fit.

Future opportunities (and problems)

With a virtual outfit that only manifests itself as soon as one or more people are in view, another aspect of AR fashion surfaces. Unlike in fully virtual worlds, you don't have a bird's eye view perspective in AR. You never see yourself, you only see the digital fashion worn by people around you. Your own outfit only appears as soon as someone else looks at you through his or her AR glasses. Or with an AR app, the 2022 way in which we get a peek into this new reality. Apart from not seeing how you look, you can never really be sure whether someone else sees you the way you wish. Are we going to rely on technology if we want to arrange our semi-digital appearances to one another? Or does it come down to interpersonal alignment and ethics, if software or hardware cannot serve us due to incompatibility or competition issues? Will digital AR fashion be about collaboration?

What & how?

There is no full-length mirror at the "Kleidung für zwei" meeting point in the Fashion Tech Farm. It's not possible to see how a virtual piece of clothing looks on you, at least not directly. What you can do is look at someone else, with the right AR app. Thanks to a sync timer, whoever you're looking at will wear what you're wearing. Is it boring that everyone is wearing the same thing? No, because the outfit you'll be wearing is interactive. You can give it a twist with one or more (arm)gestures. Which are those? You'll find out by observing the other. And besides watching, don't forget to listen. Because if the other person is 'augmenting' you concurrently, you will understand from the sound effects whether you're using the right gestures to specify the correct configuration options for the outfit that you do wear, but do not see. In summary: find someone who also has the Snapchat AR app installed on their smartphone. Open the 'Kleidung für Zwei' lens together. Point at each other and experince digital wardrobe together in which you both automatically switch outfits every minute.