Telecommunication is increasingly becoming a feature of our clothing. The process of digitization is currently creating a veritable revolution in the fashion industry. And digitization is also the central focus of Deutsche Telekom's work.
Countless computer-based services have already gone mobile and moved closer to the human body thanks to smartphone technology. And this trend is continuing with all sorts of new ideas, including virtual reality glasses, smart headphones, wristbands and rings; and even tech tattoos and chip implants. Then there's our clothes themselves: hats with incorporated speakers, shoes containing navigation aids, bras with embedded sports sensors and even rain jackets that call us back as we go out the front door, "take me with you, there's rain forecast".
Trying on clothes that do not even exist
New technologies such as augmented reality and 3D printing will soon allow customers to get much more involved in designing their own personal fashion items. Virtual dressing, i.e. trying on clothes that do not even exist as yet, or simply printing out home-designed shoes are just two new ideas that are set to become reality soon.
Deutsche Telekom provides the platforms
In 2016 Deutsche Telekom invited creative and exceptional talents from the fields of fashion and technology to submit their ideas for combining high-tech and couture to an international ideas competition “Fashion Fusion”.
Though Telekom is certainly not about to go into the fashion business, it can provide the telecommunications services and secure connectivity needed to produce connected, 'smart' fashion and has the weight to provide the strong partnership needed by makers of intelligent fashion, large and small. Because Deutsche Telekom provides the platforms on which the Internet of Things (IoT) works.