Red carpets have turned into veritable (mini) fashion week marathons thanks to the glamorous attires of our favourite stars that, in some cases, have been stealing the show, becoming almost as important as the actual awards.
Last Sunday at the 2020 Grammy Awards there were quite a few eye-catching moments - from Billie Eilish's Gucci custom ensemble with matching nail art to Ariana Grande's monumental Giambattista Valli tulle confection.
Yet it was actor Billy Porter who stole the show thanks to a peculiar accessory matched with his custom Baja East turquoise crystal fringed and flared jumpsuit with a matching cropped jacket. The accessory in question was the mechanically-retracting fringe bucket hat designed by Sarah Sokol.
The hat integrated a mechanism by Smooth Technology - a group of artist engineers led by James DeVito, Dylan Fashbaugh and Dave Sheinkopf - that allowed its fringe to open and shut.
The effect was theatrical as you may imagine with Porter opening the fringe to allow photographers to take a picture and then closing it again afterwards to regain some privacy.
This is not the first time Smooth Technology makes a piece for a celebrity: in the last few years the Brooklyn-based group has indeed collaborated on designs for Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj, Mariah Carey, Taylor Swift, Jimmy Fallon and Katy Perry, just to mention a few, and has also designed installations for museums and festivals.
Their most intriguing pieces aren't maybe the clothes with integrated LED light effects, but the ones with mechanisms that add subtle moving elements to a design, such as the mechanical blinking eye incorporated into Christian Siriano's Picasso-inspired gown for Janelle Monáe at last year's Met Gala.
Echoing the extravagant fountain dress by Paul Poiret donned by La Casati, Porter's hat incorporated a microcontroller, similar to an Arduino.
On their Instagram page Smooth Technology posted some images showing how the circuit board ran the motors managing also the radio communication with the transmitter.
The system is cleverly constructed as it can send data wirelessly while rejecting interference, something that is handy when the system is integrated in a design worn by somebody like a singer performing during a big concert (Smooth Technology used a similar system in designs for Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga and Mariah Carey).
Seeing their technology intergrated in a hat was fun as the last time we saw a head piece doing magic things was on Hussein Chalayan's S/S 07 runway: as fashion fans may remember, the runway featured transformative pieces like a Victorian gown that was reconfigured on a model's body and a soft veil-like dress that retreated inside a large flying saucer-like hat leaving the model naked on the runway (View this photo).
What will Smooth Technology create next? You wish they will come up with some extraordinary tech trick for knitwear, maybe a wearable version of Pneuhaus' Pnit inflatable sculpture representing a magnified knit stitch pattern and paying homage to the structural beauty of fabrics.
Whatever they will come up with, you can bet it will be fun to see. Somewhere in the early 1900s La Casati donned an armoured Saint Sebastian metal costume for a ball organised by Count Etienne de Beaumont. The costume was pierced by arrows and was supposed to lit up via a plug. Yet this early piece of high tech didn't work, but ended up eletrocuting la marchesa, almost killing her. Luckily, we can have some pure drama and glamorousness nowadays - or, as Billy Porter's Pray Tell in "Pose" would say, some "tech realness" - without unpleasant electrocuting accidents. Hats off to technology then.
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