The Google Glass wearable computing project has taken its fair share of insults for being too geeky or dorky. Fashion icon Diane von Furstenberg rose to the challenge during New York Fashion Week by partnering with Google co-founder Sergey Brin to use the glasses for a runway show. We have her to thank for answering the question: Can some of the world’s best models make these things look good?
The models and von Furstenberg herself wore the glasses during the show and the resulting footage will be cut into a film that scheduled for release later this week.
Fittingly, the designer’s Google+ page has shots from the event:
New York Magazine has an interesting write-up from a fashion perspective. Writer Charlotte Cowles, who was previously unfamiliar with the Glass project, said:
We noticed one publicist wearing what looked like wire-rimmed bifocals with some sort of doodad attached to one lens. Well, she looks silly, we thought to ourselves.
Brin himself was in attendance and apparently made his way down the catwalk with von Furstenberg at the end of the show.
The tech and fashion worlds don’t often collide, so I can imagine plenty of audience members were perplexed by this “doodad”, while swaths of tech enthusiasts are now on Wikipedia reading up on von Furstenberg.
Photos like the one above don’t give me much hope for the stylishness of Google Glass, but I am very interested to see how the film turns out. It could revolutionize the way documentaries are made. Though, the revolution probably wouldn’t come cheap, since the developer costs $1,500 a pair.
The DVF show is bound to generate a fair amount of buzz for the project, but it all seems a bit premature. Google has promised to get developer pre-orders out in early 2013, and the consumer version is expected to arrive in 2014.
Images owned by DVF
(hat tip Gizmodo)
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