Russian entrepreneur and style icon Miroslava Duma is spearheading a new enterprise called Fashion Tech Lab (FTL Ventures) in hopes of imbuing high-end luxury fashion goods with cutting-edge technology.
Some examples of products that Duma targets includes "new fabrics made from orange peel," lab-mined diamonds, and fabrics made with milk protein. Many of these projects have environmental benefits, in addition to a high-tech appeal: fabrics made from orange peel waste pulps help the "world's biggest juice manufacturers" recycle; lab-mined diamonds made by Diamond Foundry are grown "under carbon heat to be technically identical to the real thing," except much easier to source, and milk protein fabric (casein) resembles cashmere, while providing additional moisturizing benefits.
Both Orange Fiber and Diamond Foundry have received high-profile investments and business opportunities. Orange Fiber partnered with Salvatore Ferragamo [BIT: SFER] to create a capsule collection, and Diamond Foundry has raised $100 million in investment, while attracting celebrity and fine jewelry house endorsements. Both are also included in FTL's portfolio, which was launched in May 2017. FTL is a private company "working with 1000 technologies" that seeks to transform "the industry's attitudes towards manufacturing." The company has "secured $50 million in investment" and features a prestigious, influential advisory board.
Previously, the primary issue with wearable technology has been its lack of aesthetic appeal. In spite of the increasing irrelevance of the "fashion cognoscenti," aesthetic beauty and high-end luxury visual norms are still important criteria to determine which products thrive and which do not. Hence, Duma's FTL seeks to create a collaborative bridge between creative designers and tech innovators, in hopes of striking luxury-tech gold.
FTL can be split into three branches: an investment arm, sourcing tech experts and helping them fundraise; an agency, offering them proximity to the fashion industry, and a creative component, or "experimental laboratory" in which new products are developed and new brand collaborations forged.
The emphasis on an environmentally friendly approach is partially a reaction to the wastefulness of the fashion industry, at large. According to a 2016 Greenpeace Report, over 80 billion pieces of clothing each year are produced, with 75% ending up in a landfill, and the other 25% recycled. Wasted fabric cuttings also account for 60 billion square meters of material. Likewise, the average pair of jeans takes 7000 liters of water to produce, and tons of chemicals to dye. 2 billion pairs of jeans are produced annually. In total, the fashion industry ranked as the second most environmentally damaging polluter after the oil industry.
Some other products seek to enhance the functionality of certain everyday items by fusing them with high-technology add-ons. For instance, Duma speaks of a t-shirt "embedded with a silver yarn" that has "strong antimicrobial properties" such that it can be worn "up to 20 times," thereby helping to reduce the environmental cost of frequent laundering. Similar t-shirts also come infused with peppermint oil. A World Economics Forum report also published a report in 2015 claiming that internet-linked clothing will be worn by 10% of the world's population by 2022.
According to Duma, the luxury and technology worlds would each benefit from coming together. By ignoring technological developments, the fashion world sacrifices an opportunity to pack the most punch with the services it offers, while also doing good for the environment and potentially tapping into a still-small market with great potential. By ignoring the contributions that fashion and design could have on technology, the tech world risks remaining overly utilitarian, being visually unappealing, and hence having a lesser impact (and lower market appeal) on a greater portion of the global population than they otherwise might.
Nonetheless, the negative effects of a fashion-technology fusion are also evident. Shifting over to a technologically-dominated approach risks sacrificing the very real benefits brought by "the narrative of the artisan and traditional craftsman-based manufacture" and all the associations that such concepts as "handmade" and "traditional quality" carry. Furthermore, the questions of authenticity and uniqueness are also being raised. How can manmade technology maintain the market edge that comes with achieving these two qualities?
Duma's FTL raises the question, is there genuinely as much potential market demand for technology-luxury collaborations as they expect? Is the simple appeal of having a story behind the item (as was Duma's example with the Orange Fiber-Ferragamo collaboration) sufficient to push consumers to purchase the fancy goods?
Given the exorbitant prices of such goods, and the fact that FTL targets the upper spending echelons of the consumer market, does its mission statement and the resources it seeks to implement towards that end, genuinely match? One might argue that the support Duma has given for FTL (such as environmental friendliness, and a true bridging of the two cultures) is best achieved by developing products that appeal to the middle spending echelons. Targeted at the appropriate consumer base, Duma's mission could indeed bring about a "new industrial revolution."
Perhaps it is possible that FTL's ultimate plan is to start with the luxury market, given its high concentration of money and funding, and then, once products have been developed and credentialed, to work gradually to the middle markets. Yet, Duma's current strategy of beginning with luxury raises the question: Would her bottomline be sacrificed, if she were to carry her mission for FTL outside of the luxury market? What would she stand to lose in doing so, aside from glamor?
