Cameo for Austin Fashion Week and Industry (April 10th -

By

Sampson Onwuka



Austin Fashion week….

Part of the reason for this article heading the Austin Fashion Week beginning April 1th, 2015, is based on an article by Omar Gallaga’s writing on Austin 360 (March 31^st 2015) – it is the picture of “Robot petting zoo” taken on March 16^th 2015, of DAR – 1 during SXSW – according his underlined dissertation….”the autonomous social robot has facial recognition abilities” offered the crowd more interesting departures than the rest of SXSW where intoxication was commonplace, and can serve as the sale motivation for Austin fashion week. It was the techie hive from March 13^th – March 17^th that gave visitors a much needed gratification.  

We have Mercedes Fashion Week – perhaps as part of the sponsorship, and we have seen Amazon in India and New Delhi.  We have seen Master Card and sumptuous Toronto Fashion Week. We are aware of Cadillac as the major sponsor of Austin Fashion Week and may still sponsor this up-coming in spite of the unhealthy delivery rate of the pictures and advertising. What can tilt the landscape for Austin – it’s a Cameo – Cameo for technology.  

Looking at the Gabrielle ‘CoCo’ Chanel Art center in Paris and the dispatch from various film noir and use of everyday product, we can suggest that a town is neither old nor young when it narrows down on its definitive essence. The expansion of Austin did not begin with SXSW or should be discourage, the expansion is concomitant with technology and materiality of personalized software and hardware with it. 

Looks like the vintage is transgressed when there is gadget and it’s Austin. Whereas these traditions are part of the very town, the existence and sufficiency of its attitude can be linked closely to the culture of show-off and classic attitude to grandiosity. It will seem remarkable that the hugely successful SXSW did not sustain more than the week after the occasion that at least the town reputation was not tied to the music than it is to technology. 

 Technology is a motivation in Austin which Austin from SXSW need to transition and more than any time in its evolutionary history, the fashion week is the better test of progress for the town, as perhaps demanding than the celebration of various acts of giving which the SXSW also encourages.  There is enough originality in Texas to purchase a separate identity and taste.

If a recent gossip about tailoring is to be taken seriously, it is an MIT invention of a social network that allows you dress up for any occasion, with software helping to sort the product types, measurements and the tailoring all from ipad and iphone, even a basic IOSapp or non-devices; Gaps, Dropbox, can easily transform the public capacity or loading system (storage) for Austin.  

We may see a future between the Google Fiber and the public and the connection between a new next best thing information and internet speed, that Austin is really struggling with digital process in spite of the availability of product,   that should generate the highest buzz for a fashion week, at least here in Austin.   

The difference between a modern factory and a product through a designer is no longer confined to any area, or industries. For instance, from a recent article by Om Malik on Software and the Tailor industries, he narrated ‘what a dress shirt says about the future of retail’, whereas in the past and according to fashion, you went to see a tailor who made these cloths for you. 

But these days, the technology and software is available for your measurements and your design of interest and would deliver to you through the vendors. The comparison with Dell Computers that experimented with very personal computers, and based here in Austin/Round Rock, Texas. 

We do not frighten these hand crafted tailors in interest some of whom are part industries icons such as Armani from Austin, but apparently some of the names in fashion or style that utilize software are not well known. In this presentation, it’s the modes of the transition in the fashion industry and how some changes in cloth on how cloths are made have taken central place in the evolution of the industry.  

This is where Austin can break even with a Fashion Week, above all, in terms of the nearness of digital technology to everyday fashion. Of course there will always knuckle heads but when names such as J. Hilburn, Knots Standard, License Shoes, Modern Tailor, are not familiar with Austin – including Trumaker – which Om Malik introduced – there is something wrong with the technology.

In some sense, we have Cars and other gadget which the French and their original names in business brought to us, materials of choice which Italians and the trans-formative experience of New York emigrants from Europe do not stand still, they mere responded to the yearning in these Cities. 

But we have not seen a presentation of gadgets and cameo as part of the trend of the fashion in Austin or elsewhere or can we suggest that individual efforts do not determine their landing space in the fashion or create one.

 But ennui is usually sustained through several channels, for instance a fashion week with emphasis for designers on technology or new gadget. Their success is a different matter….