Signals

UK – Morrama, an award-winning industrial design and innovation studio, has unveiled Issé, a concept for the future of smart glasses. This mixed-reality wearable combines technological advances with a focus on fashion and eco-consciousness.

While smartwatches have become ubiquitous for tracking and displaying health data, smart eyewear faces barriers to mainstream adoption largely due to the intimate nature of face-worn devices and current technological limitations. But emerging technologies such as micro-LED displays, retinal projection and solid-state batteries are expected to overcome these limitations in the next 5-10 years.

Morrama’s Issé aims to address these challenges by offering a fashionable and customisable solution. The concept features interchangeable frames for different occasions, accommodating both lifestyle and sport-orientated design. Most of the electronics are concentrated in the lenses, making the frames low-tech and easily upgradeable as more advanced sensors become available. The frames are also designed to be eco-friendly, breaking down quickly to reduce their environmental impact. Issé is a great example of how businesses can use immersive and virtual technologies to improve our wellbeing, as revealed in The Betterverse.

Global – The Vogue Business Spring/Summer 2024 Size Inclusivity Report released in October 2023 reveals how inclusivity is still the exception on the catwalk. Plus-size (UK 18+ or US 14+) representation made up just 0.9% of the spring/summer 2024 looks presented across New York, Milan, London and Paris Fashion Weeks.

Mid-size models (UK sizes 10–16 or US sizes 6–12) represented 3.9% of the overall looks presented in fashion shows or presentations as part of the official calendar. Vogue Business reports that these figures are slightly better, up by 0.4% compared with autumn/winter 2023 fashion month, where 95.6% of looks were straight-size, 3.8% were mid-size and 0.6% were plus-size.

The study calls for intervention from fashion councils to move things forward. Copenhagen Fashion Week, for instance, introduced the Danish Fashion Ethical Charter in 2007, which includes promoting and working towards greater diversity in the fashion industry in terms of ability, age, ethnicity, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, size and socio-economic status.

As explored in our Inclusive Fashion Market report, consumers are waiting for bold innovators to close the inclusivity gap. To date, catwalks have not grasped the necessity of representing all bodies as not only a force for change but also offering a wealth of business opportunities.