Deutsche Telekom selects the winners of the Fashion Fusion competition as part of the Berlin Fashion Week

Deutsche Telekom selects the winners of the Fashion Fusion competition as part of the Berlin Fashion Week

• Deutsche Telekom draws a positive conclusion to the Fashion Fusion competition
• The winning projects are: a virtual personal trainer, an augmented reality app, as well as a haute couture performance with dancing drones
• Deutsche Telekom continues with the international Fashion Fusion Competition 2017

BONN, 23-Jan-2017 — /EuropaWire/ — For the first time, Deutsche Telekom has selected the winners of the Fashion Fusion competition as part of the Berlin Fashion Week. In 2016 Deutsche Telekom invited creative and exceptional talents from the fields of fashion and technology to submit their ideas for combining high-tech and couture to an international ideas competition. The most promising talents were given the chance to actually make their high-tech clothing, wearables and digital lifestyle products in the Fashion Fusion Lab in Berlin – while given intensive support and coaching from experts out of industry, the fashion sector and startup scene.

From among the more than 120 applicants from 25 countries, twelve teams qualified for the final round. Prizes worth a total of 35,000 euros were conferred to the three winning teams by the jury at the award show in Berlin.

The winning projects are:

• 1st place (20,000 euros): Trainwear – a virtual personal trainer integrated in smart fitness clothing
• 2nd place (10,000 euros): Mimeme – an augmented reality app that makes it possible to wear virtual clothes
• 3rd place (5,000 euros): TranSwarm Entities – haute tech couture performance stages 3D printing and drone technology for the catwalk

Patron Claudia Nemat, Member of the Board of Management of Deutsche Telekom responsible for Technology and Innovation, made a positive summary: “This competition was an exciting experiment for us, in which Deutsche Telekom ventured into uncharted territory across business sectors. The diversity of the submitted projects exceeded our expectations by far. Digitization is currently revolutionizing the fashion industry and is also a major topic for us. We can provide secure connectivity for connected, smart fashion and thus be a strong partner for the large and small makers of smart fashion. I am therefore pleased that we will continue the competition in 2017 and go into the 2nd round.”

Lisa Lang, curator of the competition and CEO of ElektroCouture, also stresses the significance of the Fashion Fusion challenge for the still emerging fashion tech sector: “Fashion Fusion unites two sectors which, at first glance, seem to have nothing to do with one another: fashion and technology. Today, the Internet of Things enables clothing to be smart. Designers and engineers must jointly accept this challenge and shape its direction. Competitions such as this one from Deutsche Telekom help to bring together people, ideas and companies, so as to promote innovations.”

1st place: Trainwear | category: Connected Devices & Accessories

Here is an excerpt from the reasoning of the jury, from speaker Christin Eisenschmid, Intel Vice President and Germany Country Manager: “Wearables for monitoring personal physical values are already part of everyday life for athletes and fitness fanatics. The Trainwear team has added an exciting new component to this trend: Their smart training wear not only measures breathing, muscle tension, balance and pulse, it also provides feedback on the wearer’s posture and the correct performance of exercise moves. With their modular software system and specially developed sensors, Gernot Bahle, Bo Zhou and Lorenzo Fürg, in collaboration with the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, have created the requirements for a “virtual personal trainer” which monitors, accompanies and supports the individual wearer while training. From the jury’s point of view: the user benefits are outstanding.”

2nd place: Mimeme | Smart Services category

Excerpt from the reasoning of the jury, from speaker Nikolaus Röttger, Editor-in-Chief of WIRED: “The augmented reality (AR) app Mimeme provides users with a new interactive and digitally designable fashion experience. The jury honored the achievements of the team, who with their Mimeme project demonstrated how modern, highly advanced technologies can inject more fun, innovation and individuality into the fashion industry of the future. They are convinced that in the fashion business there are still many more application possibilities for the AR scenarios of Tank Thunderbird and her team, including creative director Antonio Ciutto and fashion designer Christian Bruns.”

3rd place: TranSwarm Entities | Digitally Enhanced Fashion category

Anita Tillmann, CEO of Premium Exhibitions: “Maartje Dijkstra is an outstanding haute tech couture designer. She fuses art, fashion and technology into exciting new manifestations and forms of expression. The Dutch designer’s dress “TranSwarm Entities” combines state-of-the-art 3D printing and drone technology in a fashion performance, conceived as a collaborative project with music producer Beorn Lebenstedt (Newk). The sounds of the flying drones harmonizing with electronic music give the showpiece an additional modern, acoustic dimension. The jury was won over by the visionary combination of high fashion and high tech.”

“Unfolding the future of fashion and technology” – this is the motto under which Deutsche Telekom initiated the international ideas competition, which is also supported by Intel, WIRED Germany and Adidas, as well as the premium fashion fair #FASHIONTECH. It was also possible to get additional partners on board – such as S.Oliver, Osram, Fab Lab Berlin, Styleproofed, Trotec Laser, Forster Rohner Textile Innovations, Statex, Sourcebook, and Zeiss – for expertise and technical equipping.

An overview and photo spread of all the Fashion Fusion finalists:
bit.ly/DTAG-FashionFusion

For more information about the Fashion Fusion ideas competition, visit:
fashionfusion.telekom.com, Facebook: @telekomfashionfusion, Twitter: @fashionfusion, Instagram: @telekomfashionfusion, Hashtag: #fashionfusion.

About Deutsche Telekom: Deutsche Telekom Group at a glance

About Fashion Fusion: Fashion Fusion is an initiative from Deutsche Telekom that aims to design relevant, functional, sustainable and – above all – smart fashion with added value for the wearer. The initiative supports the concept of merging fashion and technology by promoting innovative concepts and getting them ready for the market. Fashion Fusion is supported by Intel, WIRED Germany and Adidas, together with Premium Exhibition International Fashion Trade Show.

SOURCE: Deutsche Telekom AG