Twyle. Play with fashion, intelligently

FASHION DIGITAL STUDIO The Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS 16 – 17th May 2013 London College of Fashion 20 John Princes Street London W1G 0BJ www.digitalfashionconference.com DIGITAL FASHION DIGITAL FASHION 2013 1ST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON DIGITAL FASHION MAY 16-17 2013 LONDON, UK PROCEEDINGS Edited by Digital Fashion 2013 Secretariat Fashion Digital Studio, London College of Fashion University of the Arts London Published and distributed by: Digital Fashion 2013 Secretariat Fashion Digital Studio, London College of Fashion University of the Arts London 20 John Princes Street London, W1G 0BJ, UK Telephone: +44 (0)204 514 6287 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE………………………………………………………………………………..i DIGITAL FASHION 2013 COMMITTEE….………………….……………………..iii DIGITAL FASHION 2013 SPONSORS………………………….………………….iv KEYNOTE ADDRESS Disruptive Patterns: The Digital Body & the Digital Self………………..………......2 Philip Delamore; London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London; UK Simon Thorogood; London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London; UK FASHION IN BUSINESS Applying Technology Adoption Models to UK High-End Fashion SMEs….………9 Atkinson, D.; London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London; UK Experience Innovation for Monetising Fashion Metadata.………………………...19 Peng, F., Delamore, P., Al-Sayegh, M.; London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London; UK TechStyleLAB & the Fashion School Store: Testing Digital Fashion Technology in a Live Retail Environment………………..……………………………………….....30 Campbell, J.R., Benitez, M., Stanforth, N., Ohrn-McDaniel, L., Wolfgang, K.; Kent State University; USA FASHION IN VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS Syndesis: Linking the Representational and Simulational Qualities of Digital Dress……………………………………………………………………………...…….42 Makryniotis, T.; London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London; UK 3D Human Body Shape Estimation and Classification for Online Fashion…..…...53 Neophytou, A.; Yu, Q., Hilton, A., Delamore, P.; University of Surrey, London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London; UK An Exploratory Study on the Emerging Concept of Luxury Products as Virtual Goods………………………………………………………………………………......59 Notkina, M.; London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London; UK FASHION IN INTERACTION Interactive Fashion: Creation & Optimization of Digital Interactive Media for Fashion Clothing………………………………………………………....……………70 Padilla, S., Robb, D.A., Chantler, M.J.; Heriot-Watt University; UK Open Source Tools for Artists and Designers in a Closed Source Environment….………………………………………………………………………..80 Benitez, M., Vogl, M.; Kent State University, University of Ohio; USA Transforming Dress…………………………………………………………………..89 Wu, S., Kang, Y., Ko, Y., Kang, Z., Kim, A., Kim, N., Martin, K., Ko., H.; Seoul National University, University of Leeds, Physan Ltd., Drexel University; KOREA, UK, USA FASHION DESIGN IN 3D Organic Fashion – from Organic Form to Digitally Manmade Pattern…………...97 Peng, F., Hill, P.; London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London; UK Haute Tech Couture…………………………………………….……………………106 Dion, G.; Drexel University; USA New Hat? Explorations in 3D Digital Millinery Designing and Making…………113 Barton, M.; Otago Polytechnic; NEW ZEALAND FASHION & SOCIAL MEDIA Twyle. Play with Fashion Intelligently…..………………………………………….124 Conti, G., Bacchini, R., Federica, A., Ascari, L.; Politecnico di Milano, HENESIS S.R.L.; ITALY Facebook Friends…………………………………..………………………………...131 Chambers, L., Stephenson, J.; De Montfort University; UK Pin Me: An Exploratory Study of the Motives and Methods Behind Fashion Brands’ use of Pinterest………………………………………..…………………....141 Nobbs, K., Montecchi, M., Kontu, H., Duffy, K.; London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London, University of Strathclyde; UK DIGITAL DESIGN Computer-Assisted Patterns Generations and 3D Interaction Techniques for Digital Fashion…………………………………………………………………..…...149 Richard, P., Naud, M., Chapeau-Blondeau, F.; Université d’Angers; FRANCE Reprogramming the Hand: Bridging the Craft Skills Gap in 3D / Digital Fashion Knitwear ………………………………………………………………………..……158 Taylor, J., Townsend, K.; Nottingham Trent University; UK Fashioning Identity……………………………………………..……………………166 Gomes Flores, L., Wilson, S., Kinnear, D.; Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, University of Dundee; UK SOCIAL MARKETING The Strategic use of Social Media – Some Illustrative Evidence from the Fashion Industry………………………...........................…………………………………….176 Kontu, H., Vecchi, A.; London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London; UK The Business of Blogging; Democratic Reality or Just Another Fabricated Fantasy………………………………………………………………………………...186 Ali, R.J.; Royal College of Art; UK ‘Let it Go’ – Consumer Empowerment and User Generated Content: An Exploratory Study of Contemporary Fashion Marketing Practices in the Digital Age……………………..……………………………………………………………...197 Montecchi, M., Nobbs, K.; London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London; UK DIGITAL FABRICATION The Design and Modelling of Additive Manufactured Textiles Structures and Garments……………………………………………………………………………..207 Bingham, G.A., Bibb, R.J., Paterson, A.M., Johnson, A.A.; Loughborough University, University of Manchester; UK Explorable Classifications of Wearable 3D-Printed Objects……………………...217 Mikkonen, J., Kivioja, S., Myllymäki, R.; Aalto University; FINLAND Digital Fabrication Beyond the Prototype……………………..…………………....224 Oknyansky, B.; Shoes by Bryan; UK DESIGN THINKING & PRACTICE The Meticulous Way of Design Thinking…………………………………………..236 Häberle, J.; Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts; SWITZERLAND Digital Clothing Manufacture: Co-creation and Digital Innovation for Local Production…………………………………………………………………………….246 Smith, M.T., Cooper, R., Blair, G.; Lancaster University; UK Future Revisited – Architecture and Fashion through the Prism of a Digital Era……………………………………………….……………………………………254 Kousidi, M.; Sapienza – Università di Roma; ITALY FASHION TOOLS 3D Digital Visualisation for Fashion and Textiles: a Practical Survey of Tools and Techniques…………………………………………………………………………....265 Grant, I., Hughes-McGrail, D.; University of West London; UK Metamorphosis: A Collaborative Design System for 3D Printed Jewellery using Parametric Modelling …..…………………………………………………………....286 Ramos, E., Gaimster, J.; London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London; UK NEW FASHION PRACTICE Parametric Stitching: the Interface between Parametric Modelling and Industrial Knitting………………..………………………………………………………………294 Underwood, J.; RMIT University; AUSTRALIA Somatic Topography: Body Mapping as a Framework for Pattern Block Development……………………………………………………………..…………....300 Kennedy, K.; RMIT University; AUSTRALIA The Adoption, Adaption and Implementation of Digital Technologies within the UK Jewellery Industry and the Resultant Creation of New Paradigms and New Ways of Approaching Design, Creativity and Manufacture…….………………...309 Penfold, G.; Birmingham City University; UK DIGITAL CURATION Beyond the Mannequin: A New Embodiment for Historic Fashion………..……..319 Martin, K.; Drexel University; USA Digital Production of Traditional Costumes…..…………………………………....329 Kang, Y., Wu, S., Ko, Y., Kang, Z., Kim, A., Kim, N., Ko, H.; Seoul National University, University of Leeds, Physan; KOREA, UK Enhancing the Display of the Fashion Artefact through Digital Multi-media Approaches………………………………………………………………………........336 Capacete-Caballero, X., Caulfield-Sriklad, D., McKay, F.; London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London; UK INTRODUCTION Digital Fashion 2013 is the inaugural event organized and hosted by the Fashion Digital Studio at the London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London. The conference, subsequently planned as an annual convention, establishes the foremost international industry and academic forum entirely dedicated to the increasingly dynamic interplay between Fashion, digital technology and interaction design. It’s ambitions are to comprehensively survey the evolving Fashion landscape and the growing relationship Fashion enjoys with the various iterations, forms, outlets, networks and tools such new media and digital technologies offers. These creative synergies have resulted in a steady but pervasive shift of emphasis within the industry, which has afforded a wide-ranging re-appraisal of the subject area and how we progressively engage with it. As a result, we have not only seen a marked swing in consumer behavior and the ways and means fashion is visually communicated and contextualized, but also how it can be conceived, devised, co-created and taught. The spectrum of Fashion educators, for example, is becoming more varied and diverse, where Universities and Institutions are complimenting their conventional raft of design tutors with coders, programmers and CAD experts and authorities. 3D printing or additive manufacturing technology has clearly become more widely available and practiced as a means of creating high-quality components for Fashion. This is especially the case in both accessory and footwear design, which has seen a manifest increase in student and professional application and is now universally accepted as an innovative yet entirely fitting fabrication tool. The uptake of new media, including live streaming, multi-media events, screen-based retail, DIY publishing and the ‘blogosphere’, has rendered Fashion’s traditional role as a marker of time obsolete. Rather, ‘experience’ is now recognised as a significant growth area, where retailers, customers and end users become part of a collective brand, message, a heritage, vision or kinship. The streaming of catwalk shows, once an exclusive and preclusive culture, has proved to fundamentally transform the conventional notion, time, space and place of fashion presentations or events and where global audiences can remotely yet connectedly share the excitement and energy of live catwalk shows, responding to them in real time and making immediate post-show orders. Big brand names and small independent designers and start-ups companies can frequently be seen to occupy the same online platforms and resources, in a more egalitarian spirit of shared acquaintance and standing, something previously unimagined. We are witnessing, by degrees, the transference of our physical relationships with clothing, apparel and accessories to a digital formatting of these same bonds. The concept of Identity, a particular characteristic that Fashion has long played with, has arguably been amplified through digital avatars, body modification, environments and gameification. And such experiential and immersive technologies will steadily require new specialists to design, i deliver and maintain such systems and structures and to inspire and engage developing audiences and users within Academia and Industry. The creation of more dedicated Fashion R&D spaces or centres, such as the Fashion Digital Studio, will be able to operate outside the stringent commercial constraints of Industry to explore, pursue and enrich business opportunity, contemporary manufacturing methods and emergent customer behaviours and paradigms. Ontology and Metadata, or the study of consumer data, behaviour, body measurements, size and fit, will undoubtedly have a substantial bearing on Fashion, potentially providing a revolutionary means for creating new universal standards for the Industry. Furthermore, forthcoming trends and advances might also be supported by recent Governmental plans to replace the present ICT (Information and Communications Technology) curriculum in favour of a pioneering program that seeks to educate young people in the basics of computer science, programming and app development. This initiative will expectantly establish a significant new agenda for Fashion skills and literacy in technology, digital media and for the enhancement of a subsequent global market place. Ultimately, the Future can be said to belong to those who extend and augment the world principally through digital media and coding. As such, this first and innovatory Digital Fashion conference aims to highlight some of the truly inspiring ways in which that future is becoming ever more inclusive, accomplished and convincing. The Fashion Digital Studio’s forward-looking research champions new technological and social progress within Fashion, with the aim of determining fresh and original educational models, innovative commercial opportunity and Industry responsibility as well as sanctioning new consumer activity, behaviour and culture. Finally, the event is proudly hosted by the London College of Fashion, whose reputation and standing is distinguished by an astute and energetic response to new developments in design practice. This conference fundamentally underscores the LCF’s purpose, commitment and core philosophy of ‘Fashioning the Future’. And with that said, welcome to Digital Fashion 2013. Simon Thorogood, Senior Research Fellow Chairman, Digital Fashion 2013 The Fashion Digital Studio, London College of Fashion University of the Arts London London, UK May 2013 ii DIGITAL FASHION 2013 ORGANISING COMMITTEE Simon Thorogood (Chairman) Fashion Digital Studio, London College of Fashion Philip Delamore Fashion Digital Studio, London College of Fashion Fanke Peng Fashion Digital Studio, London College of Fashion Douglas Atkinson Fashion Digital Studio, London College of Fashion Mouhannad Al Sayegh Fashion Digital Studio, London College of Fashion Susan Hamilton Fashion Digital Studio, London College of Fashion Saiqa Qureshi Fashion Digital Studio, London College of Fashion Nikos Yiotos Fashion Digital Studio, London College of Fashion Annahita Mackee Research Management & Administration, University of the Arts London iii Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Digital Fashion, 16-17 May 2013, London, UK TWYLE. PLAY WITH FAHSION, INTELLIGENTLY Giovanni Maria Conti 1, Roberto Bacchini 2, Federica Aradelli 3, Luca Ascari 4 ABSTRACT Nowadays the approach to fashion design and related systems must be faced in a cross-sectional way; working in fashion doesn’t mean just developing a dresses collection, rather it involves the analysis of design processes that generate the project intentions and new modalities to generate innovation. Twyle is a fashion game (actually is much more than that) and can represent such a modality, sitting at the cross point of creativity, social networking and gaming, proximity-based interaction, e-commerce. It’s a web and mobile application that connects the user, the product and the point of sale through a location and situation aware intelligent recommender system. In the landscape of many recent fashioncentered social games, Twyle aims at fitting perfectly on each and every player like a sartorial garment, thanks to state-of-art, yet invisible, artificial intelligence. The bases of the game are simple: each player has to create and maintain his/her virtual wardrobe, by identifying real fashion products and describing them with keywords and data (e.g.: size or price) on the game platform. This closet is then connected to the player’s profile, and shared within the game community, so that other players can comment and vote each player’s choice. Thanks to this simple scheme, the main goal (and reward) of the game becomes the reputation gain in the related virtual social network (real discounts and other kinds of rewards are also considered). Trough the patterns hidden in the gameplay, each player is thus prompted to contribute to a database of fashion ‘pieces of knowledge’ (products, opinions, outfits...) each one described by both subjective and objective information. Henesis, the Digital Communication Faculty of University of Milano and the Department of Design of Politecnico di Milano have cooperated in the creation of Twyle to promote the continuous interaction between users and products, users and shops. The first layer of the application is the game, focused on the interaction between users through pictures of outfits or garment; through a system of "like", users comment and exchange images of what they wear, they wish in terms of products and brands. At the second level, which involves the geolocation system, the application identifies and proposes in real time to each player stores where “liked” (or similar to, thanks to the internal recommendation system) objects can be found. The third layer of the game is a map of relationships between players, products, and places (sources) built on top of the game database: this network of relationships is built, kept updated and explored by two artificial intelligence algorithms, the first being an expert recommendation system, the second more focused on spotting trends and influences, and tracking the birth and evolution of new styles. The ultimate goal of this platform is to expose emerging patterns and trends, to connect young fashion creators and their first customers, to add a new perspective to the research of design processes leveraging on the power of digital games and social networks.. KEY WORDS Fashion; cross-fertilization; interaction design; geolocation; e-commerce; social gaming; recommender system. DIGITAL FASHION: AN “OLDER” WAY TO TALK ABOUT IT. In this paper we discuss the growing relationship between fashion designers and digital technologies. Collaborations in this field have resulted in many visionary/blue sky projects that have seen fashion designers, industrial designers and digital designers speak in a common collaborative language. Generally, the relationship between fashion and digital 1 Ph.D, Assistant Professor in Industrial Design, Design Department - Politecnico di Milano HENESIS s.r.l. 3 Research Fellow, Design Department - Politecnico di Milano 4 Ph.D, Owner in HENESIS s.r.l. 2 124 Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Digital Fashion, 16-17 May 2013, London, UK technologies has been analyzed in textile, referring to the discoveries that periodically were applied to textile materials to make them more efficient 5. It is easy to forget, that in the modern era marriages have comfortably existed between fashion and technology, contradicting the popular belief that fashion design and advanced technologies are mutually exclusive. Many innovations at the dawn of the industrial revolution were responses to changes in the production of textiles; among them, the flying shuttle, spinning jenny, spinning frame, and cotton gin. These inventions facilitated the handling of large quantities of harvested cotton, much of which resulted in clothing. Wearable objects can be defined as intuitive technologies [1, 2] involving efforts to create natural human interfaces i.e., wearable objects that support natural gestures and nonintrusive intercommunications. Wearable computing facilitates a new form of human-computer interaction comprising a small body-worn computer (user-programmable device), which is always on and always ready and accessible. In this regard, the new computational framework differs from that of hand-held devices, laptop computers and personal digital assistants (PDAs). From the design research point of view, one of the most interesting issues rising with wearable objects [3, 4] is the research on new materials. Issues that have been studied are microfibers, microencapsulation, sophisticated composite materials, intelligent fabrics, woven ceramic fibers or coatings of stainless steel, environmentally friendly fabrics and "wearable technology" in the form of clothing with integrated digital logic circuits 6. Many of the new tissues, now successful, were originally commissioned by the US DoD or by NASA for the production of protective clothing or garments to be used in very specific hightech environments: Gore-Tex and Kevlar are examples, both using a Velcro closure. Another interesting area of application is the design of wearable for leisure. At the beginning of the Twentieth century, the Italian Futurists movement demanded a re-evaluation of dress/fashion and the inclusion of technologies in clothing to celebrate the beauty of speed, dynamism and the machine. Giacomo Balla, in 1914, talked of ‘modifiers’ that would allow the wearer of garments to “not only modify but also invent a new dress for a new mood at any instant”. From their inception, man-made or ‘artificial’ fibers and textiles were regarded with suspicion. The public perception was that they were ‘substitutes’ and therefore inferior to natural fibres and textiles. Rayon was understood as an artificial silk [5]. It was not until the 1960s that an open relationship between fashion, technology and textiles was developed. Begun in the 1950s, the space race culminated with a man walking on the moon in 1969, one of the first global spectacles and watched live by a fifth of the world population. The flag, made by Dupont, still stands unflappable on the moon’s surface. Couture was given new life by Courrèges, Cardin and Rabanne, who embodied the 1960s spirit of the ‘Space Age’. They expressed their spacey design philosophy through a combination of radical minimalized silhouettes, and the use of textiles produced by NASA for the Moon missions. Although there have been applications of new textile technologies since the 1960s, such as Lycra in the 1980s, it is only now that we are seeing a new and vibrant relationship between fashion and new technologies. Whereas the 1960s were identified as the ‘Space Age’ in design and innovation, it is widely understood that we are living in the ‘Digital Age’. It would be impossible to summarize the different innovations and different relationship that history has seen since the first combination of fashion and digital technology. Today fashion and digital technologies do not refer just to what can characterize the fabric or garment; new digital technologies, the continuous interaction between technology and fashion, the needs expressed by users, have allowed the digital fashion materialize in a more complex research, such as the social networking and gaming, proximity-based interaction, e-commerce. TWYLE: FROM FASHION CLOTHES TO FASHION GAME Playing with fashion, gaming with the style could be the main claim to describe the Twyle project. From the collaboration between Henesis, a start-up conceiving and designing artificial perceptive devices and systems, the Faculty of Digital Communication in Milano and the Department of Design of the Politecnico di Milano, Twyle was born, the first interactive proximity-based game that brings together the users, the fashion products and the stores, as well as a community of people who interact with each other through a system of ‘like’ referring to pictures taken and uploaded to the Twyle platform system. Yet another fashion game? Definitely not! At a first superficial sight, the concept of Twyle is not new to the world of fashion-related platforms, the first two of them being chictropia 7 and lookbook 8: the former is a website “to create a community in which users could finally answer the 5 “Wearable services in risk management”, Paper for “2009 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Joint Conference on Web Intelligence and Inteligent Agent Technology”, International Conference IEEE Computer Society, Milano 2009, ISBN: 978-0-7695-3801-3/09, DOI 10.1109/WI-IAT.2009.350 6 “Digital Fashion: Wearing Your Heart On Your Sleeve”, Thesis of Master of Science in the School of Computing Science, © Keith Shu Syn Gin 2002, Simon Fraser University, November 2002 7 http://www.chictopia.com 8 http://lookbook.nu 125 Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Digital Fashion, 16-17 May 2013, London, UK question ‘What looks good on you?’ ” 9, while the latter “is the original, user-generated & community-curated gallery showcasing do-it-yourself fashion photography from everyday people, everywhere.” None of these considered a mode of interactive game. The gaming dimension appeared later, in platforms like svpply 10, vice 11or fashionista 12; more recently, Styloola 13 appeared as fashion games. Although their concept was new in the beginning, the dimension of social network and platform for sharing outfits clearly overpowers any others in their current implementation, as their clearly Pinterestlike 14 home page shows. As a clear latecomer, Twyle can take advantage of the objective limitations of the previously listed platforms and, through the intelligent and most advanced use of “gamification” and artificial intelligence, offer its users a new and complete sharing, gaming, buying fashion experience. The word “users” instead of players comes form the fact that Twyle targets three main different families of users: • players use the platform as a social geolocalized fashion game, interact with their own and other players’ looks, objects, wish lists; players can take part in physical or virtual thematic contests, increase their reputation, earn virtual and real prizes; • retailers can open virtual shops in the platform and sell from there; the virtual shop can either be associated to a real shop, offering to Twyle users a new in-shop experience, or de-localized. This last kind of shop will be especially appreciated by young stylists or students, which can’t afford a real shop and distribution structure at the beginning of their career, or simply wish to assess the market-ability of a collection. • brands will have access to a series of high added-value information, such as trends in a certain city or even a city-area. By analysing the aggregated anonymized game patterns, thanks to the localization features of smart phones, detailed predictive fashion-maps can be generated for each geographical area in which Twyle is played. Anyone can take advantage of Twyle in one or more modalities. This paper mainly focuses on the first class of users, the players, for which the game dimension of Twyle is most important. Figure 1 summarizes the model of the player, highlighting the activities that can be performed in the game. Figure 1: scheme summarizing the activities of the player 9 “Megastores dell’abbigliamento alla ribalta nelle vie cittadine dello shopping: uno scenario vivo”, Article by Mancinelli A., (2011) http://www.plusmark.it/pagine/ARTICOLI/ricerche_abbigliamento.htm 10 http://svpply.com/ 11 http://www.viceland.com/it 12 http://www.fashiolista.com 13 http://www.styloola.com 14 http://www.pinterest.com 126 Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Digital Fashion, 16-17 May 2013, London, UK The fashion proximity game Each player has a unique username (allowing access to the web site and to the App from the smartphone), with which she/he can upload pictures of her/himself (the “look”) taken from the camera (or uploaded on the web site); looks are stored in the “lookbook” section, and can be voted by other players. Looks can be managed, adding information on the articles of clothing, prices, brands, shops… Possessed objects are stored in the “wardrobe” section, while others’ objects can be placed in the “wishlist” section. Any item in Twyle can be commented, asked for advice, shared in the major social networks (with some limitations to protect other players’ privacy). Two scoring mechanisms are in place: fashion-coins are a reward for quantitative user’s activity on the platform (such as inserting looks, objects, commenting, tagging), while reputation is a quality measure, proportional to the positive feedbacks obtained by other players on posted activity (looks, comments, answers to questions, objects, suggestions, articles). The reputation is measured in “gruccia” (the Italian word for clothes hanger) points, which every user is free to bestow while playing. This scoring mechanism enables the emergence of several game-related roles, which have access to specific advanced functionalities. Figure 2 contains some screenshots of the web site and the application (currently available for the Android platform only). Figure 2: Screenshots. Top: a section of the Twyle web site; bottom left: the Looks page of the App (from where it’s possible to add a new look); bottom right: the object page (besides the main picture from here the player can rate it positively, add it to the wish list, add it to the cart, proceed to payment). During their interaction with the game, players’ tastes are learned and, from a certain point on, can be inferred. Here the second dimension of Twyle, as mobile contextual advertiser, comes into the scene. Mobile contextual advertiser Figure 3 shows a simplified snapshot of a subset of the relational database that organizes Twyle resources (i.e. objects, players, tags, scorings), which populate the cloud around each of them: edges are the result of an action (rate positively, tag, “gruccia”, …). The red path is the one with the highest score linking, for instance, a user to a specific object or object 127 Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Digital Fashion, 16-17 May 2013, London, UK family, user that will probably be much more incline than average to receive push notification with advertisements about those specific highly scored objects. Figure 3: a snapshot of the data base highlighting (in red) the existing relation between a user and a specific pair of shoes. This recommender system, which continuously analyses spatial-temporal gaming patterns and whose details are beyond the scope of this paper, is based on proprietary patented algorithms developed by Henesis in several years of research in the automotive field and discovers relationships of proximity between Twyle resources. Proximity in Twyle can be semantic and/or geographical: in the first case resources potentially interesting one for each other can be put into contact even if geographically distant (a feature which allows retailers and stylists to find their customers virtually all over the world and that fits well with the web-based access); in the second case, more compatible with a use on mobile platforms, only the subset of potentially interesting resources which is physically close to a user is pushed to her/his attention. By this mechanism advertising becomes extremely more targeted, and gains value. The use of Twyle as mobile contextual advertiser is based on a community of active users, whose creation requires a multi step approach (shown in figure 4), leveraging on a web site, the user interaction on the social networks, the Twyle App. Thematic contests, organized either on the web around a particular trend/theme or in coincidence with specific events, will play a special role in the creation of the community. Figure 4: gameplay timeline: rows are the platforms (SN=social network); columns are the four consecutive objectives/steps (0 - 3); the elements in the matrix are the tools adopted to reach the corresponding objective. 128 Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Digital Fashion, 16-17 May 2013, London, UK CONCLUSIONS In the contemporary world, fashion is the main phenomenon where it’s possible to organize complex experiments because, by its nature, fashion connects people, objects and places. Through a truly multidisciplinary approach it has become possible to design an integrated platform able to use fashion as a system of relations and to generate business 15. Fashion is an often-used non-verbal communication channel. People dress to reflect individual preferences. For example, people easily identify bikers by their dark leather jackets. Similarly skateboarders have their own clothing style and choose their clothes carefully to reflect this. People use these identifying styles to connect with people of similar interests or to avoid people with certain interests. Twyle redesigns the interaction procedures between people and "fashionable" objects and the method of style construction; it is based on the concept that each person, through a picture of her/his favourite clothes, may, firstly, get in touch with people who have similar tastes and, secondly, find more easily what they prefer in the shop. Like other social media Twyle is based on shared knowledge, meaning information about a person that is shared with others in the same environment. This information is knowledge, mainly about that individual, often referred to as profile information. As such it is shared through the communication of beliefs, ideas, opinions, and facts with other people. Shared knowledge does not require a similarity of ideas or opinions for facilitating interactions. Technology has often acted as a barrier to face-to-face interactions. People can be intimidated by users of technology and place these people in a position of power. The field of wearable computing faces the challenge of creating wearable computers that do not intimidate nonusers and allow normal social interactions to occur. Our desire to use technology, and specifically gamification, for facilitating social interactions goes against the common perception of technology as a deterrent to social interactions. We start by reviewing technology in social settings and trying to discover their shortcomings. We use this knowledge to build and evaluate our own design and advance our understanding of technology in a social context. Twyle is currently in its beta testing, adopted by fashion students but freely available on the Android Market. The platform is experiencing continuous improvements also thanks to the generous user feedbacks. The intelligent contextaware recommendation system is object of active research and will be finalized in june 2013. Partial results of the beta testing and some preliminary metrics will be discussed at the conference. 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