You can also “try on” clothing in AR using the Snapchat app, anytime, anywhere.
In a first-of-its-kind partnership, Snapchat and British Vogue are coming together to launch Vogue x Snapchat: Redefining the Body, an incredible AR exhibition curated by Editor in Chief, British Vogue and European Editorial Director, Vogue, Edward Enninful OBE (Order of the British Empire).
The AR exhibit features high-end fashion designs brought to life using custom Snapchat filters. Textiles transform into innovative digital AR experiences that tell stories about heritage and diversity or echo a global movement.
The groundbreaking event will be hosted in Cannes, France at the Centre d’art La Malmaison. Snap and Vogue will showcase clothing designs from seven of the world’s leading fashion brands and designers; Balenciaga, Dior, Gucci, Kenneth Ize, Richard Quinn, Stella McCartney, and Versace.
Anyone attending this event will be able to walk through an incredible custom design room and unlock the creative vision of these fashion leaders in inclusive design using powerful AR Snapchat try-on experiences.
Each designer will work in one of six custom environments that will complement their physical fashion and using custom Snap Lenses, the designers will be able to bring their works to life in a way that is inclusive and accessible for everyone.
Here’s what you can expect from each designer (as provided by Snap):
- The French maison’s exhibition room is swathed in opaque darkness. Dense black curtains line the space, which houses two spotlit looks from Balenciaga’s 50th Couture Collection, and nods to the design of a historic dressing salon.
- The pieces are part of Balenciaga’s first Couture collection since 1968, the year the maison’s founder retired.
- Attendees can scan the room’s Snapcode to instigate different perspectives of the monochromatic environment.
- There will also be a custom Balenciaga AR experience, with try-on Lenses available to wear the shocking-pink opera coat showcased in the exhibition.
- In the courtyard of the Centre d’Art La Malmaison, a three-metre-high statue of a model wearing the revolutionary Dior New Look of 1947 welcomes guests to Redefining the Body.
- Standing on a five-pointed star – a symbol of divine providence that inspired the superstitious founding couturier to open his house in 1946 – she holds the iconic Lady Dior bag, an emblem of elegance for nearly three decades.
- The Snapchat Snapcode reveals Dior petites mains skillfully hand-sewing details on this statue as she steps off her star-edged plinth, unifying time-honed craftsmanship with digital technology.
- In its exhibition room, the Florentine house replicates the white grid and illusionistic funhouse mirror set design of the Exquisite Gucci runway show.
- On podiums, mannequins display looks from this masculinity-exploring collection, which imagined the suit as a sartorial prompt.
- Using the Snapchat Lens, Snapchatters can use their phone screen to warp its dimensions, unearthing colorful portals in a palette that reflects the atmosphere of the Exquisite Gucci show
- Snapchatters will be able to wear Gucci’s tailoring, faux-fur coat, aviator-style sunglasses and beret, revealed in moving tessellated grids.
- Kenneth Ize – whose 2013-founded brand champions West African craft – has collaborated with Nigerian multimedia artist Jelili Atiku on an exhibition space featuring vivid reproductions of his paintings and public performance pieces.
- Within this exhibition room, colorful wall hangings and upholstery are created using Aso oke – a handwoven Nigerian fabric pivotal to Ize’s designs.
- Mannequins display vivid one-off gowns, which reflect Ize’s commitment to craft.
- Through the Snapchat AR experience, viewers can experience Ize’s West African story, brought to life through sound, and wear his tactile creations, which will ripple and unfurl before their eyes.
- A geometric grid of florals and polka dots, the exhibition room of British designer and this year’s BFC / Vogue Designer Fashion Fund winner Richard Quinn is swathed in the prints idiosyncratic of his 2016-founded brand.
- Lenses will reveal a magical garden, where blue roses magnify through a mist, growing before your eyes and giving Snapchatters the opportunity to watch as Quinn’s opera coat and wide-brimmed balaclava appear on their bodies in an interactive swirl of sparkle.
- The 2001-founded British house’s exhibition room is transformed into a grotto of giant colorful mushrooms, where mannequins display cascading ruffled dresses from the brand’s spring/summer 2010 collection.
- The space is rooted in Stella McCartney’s spring/summer 2022 collection and campaign theme, Fungi Are The Future Of Fashion And Our Planet, with the designer having been inspired by these incredible organisms’ potential for offering more sustainable solutions from medicine to material innovation.
- The Big Mushroom will transform to showcase digital bees pollinating mushroom spores using Scan technology, and the try-on AR feature will unveil a headdress garlanded with mushrooms alongside a gown growing from fantastic fungi.
- Gilded tiles, Baroque columns, and Versace’s Medusa capture the Italian brand’s feeling of modern opulence within its exhibition room.
- On display are bondage-inspired pieces from the brand’s now-legendary autumn/winter 1992 collection, ‘Miss S&M’.
- Snapchat brings the experience to life, letting Snapchatters wear buckled looks that morph into writhing snakes as the mythological Medusa is brought to life, and transforms into the viewer themself.
Along with physical fashion being used to unlock phenomenal AR experiences, the exhibition’s facade will also be digitally “wrapped” by designers using Snap’s impressive Landmarker technology, transforming the building’s exterior.
“It has always been important to me to make fashion accessible for all. Using augmented reality, Vogue x Snapchat: Redefining the Body is an exhibition that invites everyone – regardless of race, gender, sexuality and size – to experience and enjoy fashion from some of the world’s very best designers and luxury brands,” said Enninful in an official press release, adding “It doesn’t get better than that.”
During an SXSW 2022 panel called Future Fashion: Physical Form’s Challenge, panelist Samuel Alexander, CEO of C2C Fashion and Technology LLC, talked about how the clothing we wore was more than just a fashion statement; it reflects who we are as people.
He envisioned the day he’d be able to tell that story in a more rich and meaningful way and saw AR technology from companies like Snap Inc. as the key to unlocking that layer.
“We are thrilled to partner with Vogue to empower hundreds of millions of Snapchatters around the world to digitally experience fashion from top designers and brands,” said Evan Siegel, Co-Founder and CEO of Snap inc. “Through this exhibition, and augmented reality more broadly, we hope to introduce new levels of accessibility, creativity, and expression to the fashion and design world.”
Vogue x Snapchat: Redefining the Body will also see Vogue and Snapchat partnering with DressX to create a capsule collection for the exhibition. This collection will include limited-edition Vogue x Snapchat merch and will be available on the DressX site and at the exhibition for guests to “try on” in AR.
Each of the AR fashion experiences was developed in collaboration with Arcadia, Atomic Digital Design, and Snap’s newly established Paris AR Studio which is focused on empowering and educating the next generation of creators in an effort to inspire the world about the possibilities of augmented reality across art, education, and culture. You can also try on some of the outfits at home by visiting Snapchat’s Lens carousel or in the Dress Up tab in Lens Explorer.
Vogue x Snapchat: Redefining the Body launches today. For more information, click here.
Image Credit: Snap Inc.
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