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The concept of crowdsourcing has started to take hold in the fields of music and movies. Budweiser is even looking to crowdsource its next beer. Is fashion the latest frontier in this 21st century quest to subvert traditional business models?
Continuum Fashion thinks it very well might be. Mary Huang and Jenna Fizel founded Continuum, a hybrid design lab/fashion label, to explore new 3D design and printing technologies and their applications to fashion design. Their newest platform is Constrvct, a crowdsourced fashion label. All designs are created by users, with Continuum providing the software to power them.
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Constrvct utilizes inkjet textile printing to actually form the garments that people choose to purchase, with designs starting at $125. And the bespoke nature of the process is largely appealing; you can elect custom sizing and order your garment based on your own specific measurements. Continuum also offers the D.dress app, which takes the idea of the little black dress and lets users run wild with it, as well as Strvct shoes, a 3D printed shoe collection.
Continuum Fashion is the latest featured artist from The Creators’ Project, a three-year-old arts and technology initiative sponsored by Intel and VICE that showcases artists who are using new technological tools to revolutionize their creative pursuits. And it does appear to be a revolution that Huang and Fizel are aiming for. Will consumers be eager for an alternative to the traditional top-down fashion hierarchy driven by designers and editors, and channel their own creative energies instead? With Constrvct, the tools are at their fingertips.