Material girls

New York – Retailer Forever 21 is giving fans a fabric facelift on a giant interactive screen made from thread.

• Built by agency Breakfast, the screen is a complex feat of engineering, containing more than 200,000 parts
• Anyone from around the world can send in their photos for a chance of seeing them up on the thread screen

Each of the thread screen’s 6,400 spools contains five-and-a-half feet of fabric made from 36 different colours, which can be reconfigured to display photos in a resolution equivalent to around 80x80 pixels.

‘From the start we knew we wanted to build a web-connected experience that anyone could try from anywhere in the world,’ says Breakfast co-founder Andrew Zolty. ‘We chose fashion’s most basic and versatile element in thread and focused on Instagram as it is the most creative of social networks.’

To be in with a chance of featuring, fans of the brand must tag their Instagram photos using the hashtag #F21threadscreen.

The Big Picture: The interaction between the physical and digital worlds is a source of fascination for consumers. Capture their imaginations with playful synergies of physical and digital systems using our microtrend Creative Phygital.