Last season, we witnessed Dolce & Gabbana’s drones stealing the show at Milan Fashion Week, even Anna Wintour, Vogue’s editor-in-chief was impressed. This season, a robot will debut for the first time on the runway at LFW thanks to Silicon Valley-based robotics company OhmniLabs who have joined forces with Kambria, a company known for using blockchain technology to drive the open development of frontier technologies like AI. Together the two companies will be working in partnership with House of iKons, a fashion brand founded by Savita Kaye under Lady K Production in 2014. It is a collaboration that will be bringing the Ohmni robot to the runway at LFW in one-of-a-kind creations from Honee.
Taking place on 15-16th September 2018, this will be the first time robots have walked the ramp at London Fashion Week. “We’re excited to have our Ohmni robots walk the runway at London Fashion Week. Our partnership with Honee and the House of iKons shows how robotics and the fashion world can creatively work together, similar to Kambria, our open innovation platform that lets people build inventive products,” said Thuc Vu, co-founder and CEO of OhmniLabs and Kambria.
“Our partnership with Honee and the House of iKons shows how robotics and the fashion world can creatively work together.”
The vision behind both OhmniLabs and Kambria is to enable various forward-thinking and unique use cases in the worlds of health, technology, senior care and in this case, fashion. Renowned LA Designer Honee is an artist, fashion and industrial designer. Her work combines multiple media and sensibilities and also highlights social themes. Honee has paired with OhmniLabs and Kambria to marry fashion, culture and technology into one harmonious balance. Keeping her design under wraps until the big event, Honee was able to share that her vision is for people to see Ohmni and robots as a part of their everyday lives with a focus on the present rather than the future, with a play on the word “telepresence.” Honee’s solo segment on Saturday, September 15th will have both human and robotic models, bringing fashion and advanced technology together.
Honee stated, “I am thrilled to have the sponsorship of OhmniLabs, a telepresence robotic company. My show with the House of iKons this September is named ‘ÁI’, in reference to Artificial Intelligence and also the play on the Vietnamese word ÁI for love and the Chinese phonetic AI for love as well. We’re in the world of AI and loving it. I use fashion as the language to express the skins we are in. In my upcoming show, it’s not about the future of robots, of a world unknown, but of the presence, the NOW. And OhmniLabs is ushering in the world of NOW with their telepresence robots. I’m honoured and super excited to be a part of the OhmniLabs journey.”
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Could the debut Of A robot on LFW catwalk be symbolic of the growing fusion of fashion and tech? Tell us what you think.
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.