Fashion X Technology continues to move forward not only with fashion brands communicating better view social media and video vignettes, but also mobile apps for shopping and on-site demand.
Last week at TechCrunch’s annual Disrupt SF hackathon, Google Glass was back in the foreground via Glashion–the Glass that allows wearers to immediately find the fashion item them are looking at, and/or buy it.
While insta-fashion seems quite popular especially among youth culture, as we’ve outlined in our Fall Youth Culture Study (to be released next week) there are a number of changes taking place in purchasing patterns among this marketplace today. However, Glashion is hoping things remain as they once were with the idea that once you see something you love, you’ll want to buy it fast.
Glashion works by letting you take a photo of what you’re seeing and via the app, you can browse to see where the item is located elsewhere (for competitive pricing), or you can to buy it online. The app is going through ShopStyle API to search for your items. It seems to be pretty user friendly in that like a mobile phone, you can swipe to see other matches or click on a link to buy it from an online retail location if it’s offered.
Glashion was fashioned by AngelHack NYC founder Billy Mauro and Felipe Servin, who founded Calzaclick which is an e-commerce store for footwear. Mauro is also the man behind the other fashion start-up called instashop (for products found via Instagram) which, according to TechCrunch, may be changing their name to the unfortunate cutesy name of Shopsy.
The idea with Glashion, according to Maura is to utilize Google Glass and cross the divide between online and offline shopping behaviors. This is quite similar to what many brands in Japan have been doing for years via mobile phone shopping and information sourcing.
The other thing to note however is that Google Glass is still not cheap and the looks of them are not nearly as fashionable as the brand geeks think that they are. Until the styles match what consumer’s truly like in glasses, they’re still awkward looking. In addition, for youth culture at least, utilizing one’s phone to snap images of likable things is engrained in lifestyle patterns and is simply an easier way to interact within online shopping.
But the intersection of technology and fashion is moving forward fast. And Glashion is something to watch in the near future.
