MTV and Channel 4 presenter Maya Jama made a futuristic fashion statement on Sunday, by wearing the world’s first 5G-powered augmented reality (AR) dress to the 2020 Bafta Awards.
The dress itself – a fashion first for 5G use cases – took British designer Richard Malone 250 hours to complete, and the final piece uses an array of technology to collect movement and positional data, which is then fed into an augmented reality app.
“I love making a fun entrance, but this will be off the scale,” Jama said as she arrived at the star-studded awards ceremony.
The dress modelled by Jama was a floor length, light blue gown. And although it may have looked like any other outfit typically worn to an awards bash, this 5G-enabled dress was able to digitally transform itself when viewed through an augmented reality app on a tablet device.
How did it work?
Richard Malone, designer of the 5G-powered AR dress, is already well-known for his unique pieces, which are renowned for pushing the boundaries of what can be achieved with fabric, and with this dress he went one step further.
The dress contained more than 12 full body-length wires and 18 sensor bulbs. To keep all of the technology hidden, it was hand sewn with more than 100,00 stitches. The sensors were tracked using the EE 5G network, allowing Jama and others to interact with the design using a smartphone.
Jama demonstrated the power of the dress by posing in front of a huge screen, which then displayed the dress transforming into an extravagant green garment.
“My work is generally all about the human touch – we're a small team in my atelier, working by hand – and this project has allowed me to integrate technology into my work in a completely new way,” Malone explained.
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