It’s Fashion month once again, a time when the hottest style and tech trends converge. So which digital features will The Practice team be looking out for this coming show season?

Live streaming has always been a popular medium for designers to allow real-time access to their shows, and this year, it’s all about Periscope. Twitter’s live-streaming tool has been one of the most successful apps this year, enabling organizations and individuals to stream from any location- and now, Fashion Week will fully be embracing the trend.  In a catwalk first, Spanish brand Desigual has revealed plans to have one of its models walk the runway holding a smartphone featuring a Periscope live-stream. And Ralph Lauren has taken the Periscope experience one step further, broadcasting the stream of its show on the iconic Piccadilly Circus billboards yesterday morning. Last show season, we also saw designers such as Marc Jacobs and Burberry use Periscope broadcasts, featuring clips from the shows, behind the scenes footage, and a real-time Q&A from Marc Jacobs himself. And it has been revealed this season, that Fashion Week-related broadcasts posted on Twitter will be accompanied by the hash tag, #fashionunfiltered, to emphasize the unique aspect of using the app- that nothing is edited or changed in any way.

And of course, traditional live streaming will still very much be part of the show experience. For one, it helps designers gain customer data, opinion, and drive sales. In fact, designers such as Calvin Klein have already started to add buy buttons to their live streams, promoting site products that are similar to what’s being shown on the runway. New York-based designer Rebecca Minkoff will be taking live streaming one step further, displaying her show in a virtual reality video in partnership with California-based virtual reality company, Jaunt. This will enable the show to be viewed through a VR headset connected to the user’s smartphone, giving a 360-degree view of the collection. In another spin on traditional live steaming, designer Misha Nonoo will be shunning a typical catwalk show in favour of an “Insta-show”, shown exclusively on her account.

So what other revolutionary tech displays can we expect? One of our favourites debuted this week, came from designer Zac Posen, who created an LED dress made by female coders. In partnership with the Google initiative, Made with Code, the project saw Posen team up with young coders in order to create a dress featuring their animated designs. The female coders adjusted elements such as patterns, colours and shapes from a set of properties online, and the finished product featured over 500 LED lights, causing the dress to light up as it moved down the runway. To add further excitement to this season’s tech spectacle, New York Fashion Week sponsor, Intel, has been flying drones over selected catwalks in order to present a birds-eye view of the collections. The sponsor has also teamed up with designer Francis Bitonti to create a 3D-printed dress able to capture the model’s adrenaline!

Are you looking forward to seeing how tech, digital and social will infiltrate Fashion Week this season? We’d love to hear your thoughts, so please tweet to us @PracticeDigital and share your comments on our Facebook page.