Since its humble beginnings back in 1967, the international Consumer Electronics Show went from 14 vendors to 3,200 vendors this year. For those who can cast their mind back, this was the place that many tech fans witnessed and salivated over Sony’s first VCR and Nintendo’s first games entertainment system. On this Gary Shapiro, chief executive of the Consumer Technology Association shared that at his first CES event he recalled being wowed by compact discs.
Now fast forward back to 2016, and the show has become the must attend event for tech industry insiders, early adopters, tech geeks and everyone else in between. Taking place in the city of sin Las Vegas, it is hard to not be wowed by the 2.4 million square feet that houses the hottest tech ideas developed into the latest experimental gadgets by a mixture of entrepreneurs, corporations and small time inventors.
Of all the tech events that take place over a year period, CES is the one that gives you a peek into what the future could look like. This year the headlines are buzzing around virtual reality, robotics, connected homes (IoT) and high tech cars. The thought of whats hot at CES excites us, especially when it comes to recent developments surrounding the smart home like Ford exploring integrating its cars with the Amazon Echo and the Wink smart home platform. It is this kind of forward thinking that will always have us rubbing our hands with glee. We do not worry about whether it is actually possible yet, because we believe that the approach to the smart home is all “about the maturation of home automation.” [Patrick Moorhead, Analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy]
In comparison to last year, I look forward to seeing a more matured version of the smart home. I am confident that we can now trust that the ambitious ideas of before have been developed to a standard that could mean that they are soon ready to be connected to our home. It would be even better if they have the devices also have the smart capability to work both online and offline, just a thought.
When one speaks of CES and fashion tech in the same breath, we all can agree that the event is definitely more known for being about tech than fashion. That being said there is FashionWare, the CES side project were fashion is supposed to meet tech. It is an event is all about bringing fashion tech to the runway. This year it will be taking place on Thursday 7th January 2016 at the Venetian. Hosted by Project Runway Nick Verreros, you can look forward to seeing 3D printed dresses, LED, iPhone connected dresses, origami inspired evening wear and sports-centric biometric clothing.
If one takes a moment to analyse the adoption of Fashion Tech at CES, one will notice that 2015 was all about asking the question of how can we make the balancing act of fashion and technology work, without sacrificing the fashion or compromising the technology. I believe that 2016 should be the year we provide the answers to that old age question can Fashion and Technology be the New Power Couple?
Founding editor-in-chief of FashNerd.com, Muchaneta is currently one of the leading influencers writing about the merger of fashion with technology and wearable technology. She has also given talks at Premiere Vision, Munich Fabric Start and Pure London, to name a few. Besides working as a fashion innovation consultant for various fashion companies like LVMH Atelier, Muchaneta has also contributed to Vogue Business, is a senior contributor at The Interline and an associate lecturer at London College of Fashion, UAL.