technology / Materials

Technology was forced to prove its worth this year as businesses sought practical use cases for AI and data analytics amid a tough consumer environment that brought a few high-profile businesses crashing back down to earth.

After generative AI’s breakout year in 2023, The State of Fashion 2024 examines emerging use cases across creative industries, including fashion.

Digital platforms are working to bring fashion’s deadstock materials out of dusty warehouses and make them easy to buy and sell online, but they face an industry used to doing things the old-fashioned way.

A giant investment from Softbank in 2021 turbocharged expansion plans at Vuori, which is now eyeing global expansion and a takeover of its customers’ closets. But Lululemon, Nike and a host of direct-to-consumer competitors stand in its way.

Late last month, leading materials start-up Bolt threads said it had paused operations for its leather alternative Mylo. The company’s struggle to raise funds points to deeper challenges for the sector, writes Kenneth Pucker.

Synthetic stones now make up 10 percent of the diamond market, highlighting the ways in which new materials are rewriting the rules of what is considered luxury.

Material choices, garment construction and manufacturing processes can make a big difference to reducing much of the polluting particles clothes shed.

From products made of recycled plastic to take-back programmes, some of fashion’s favourite sustainability solutions are problematic, argues Beth Esponnette.