On Saturday night, the most relaxed night of the week, I always like to chat with Y after dinner. And this time, we talked about clothes.
While storing away a huge piles of clothes into her wardrobe,Y complaints: “I have so many pieces of clothes, but none seems fitting nicely to me.”
I know this is exactly what man jokes about woman’s wardrobe--No matter how many pieces of clothes a woman has, there always seems lacking one. It is either the style, the colour or the material that doesn't make a combination perfect. Sometimes, we buy a new one to match some clothes we already have. But only after bring it home, we find it doesn’t give the kind of effect we had expected, so we start to buy some more to match with this new one. Especially for colour, I really think it is really rich people’s game. Just think about the suits goes with same color shoes, handbag, hat, etc…So I said if I could be given one magical power, I would really want it to be the ability to change the colour of an object.
Then Y suggests why can’t we change the textile and design, too. “Then you would only need one piece of clothes. Imagine you select a design you like, then the clothes you are wearing will be automatically change into that design.”
“I guess that will really only happen in fairytale.”
“Not necessarily.” Y disagrees. “In QQ, you could already buy clothes in the online virtual shops. Just click on the clothes you like, the virtual “you” will be dressed in those clothes immediately.”
“Yeah, that is true. But don’t forget, it is VIRTUAL, not in real-life. Except…” The word “virtual” seems triggered something in my mind. “Except if the clothes are not made of conventional material. Maybe they are Nano-particles that could be controlled by electricity (or things like that). So their distribution and colour could be easily altered. And thus is the design and visual effect of the clothes. Isn’t that sounds a bit like the Matrix? You actually wear nothing.” I am quite proud of my derivation. And thinking about clothing, it immediately reminds me of my Human Factor Engineering lecture, “and, you know, it makes perfect sense. Such kind of clothing is so light and will provide best heat transfer at the skin. Really comfortable for tropical climate.”
Y is obviously horrified by the idea of not wearing anything, so she drops the topic. But I think we did have a great idea. Maybe in the near future, it will be materialized. Who knows?
Here is our final modified version of the future way of managing your wardrobe:
When you want to buy a piece of clothes, its digital image will be automatically downloaded via internet to “My Wardrobe” folder in your computer (palm-top if you are outside in the shopping mall). There will be a program that automatically starts matching it with your existing clothes according to a set of rules such as a blouse will only match with skirt and pants. Some rules are set by your personal preference; e.g. green will never go with purple. Then, the screen will display the possible combinations like the search engine displays your search results ---with the most preferred matches as according to your preferences at the front, followed by less prefered ones. After that, you will choose the combinations you like and decide upon those matches if you would like to buy the clothes. If you finally buy the clothes, a certain amount of money will be deducted from your credit card account. If you don’t buy, the downloaded image will be automatically destroyed after your rejection. There is no way for you to copy the image so that the intellectural property rights of the designer is protected.
So every morning when you stand in front of your big dressing mirror, the mirror will become a screen that displays "My Wardrobe" ----something works like Windows Media Player library. Every piece of clothes has been categorised according to some properties such as purpose (business, travelling, evening wear), season (spring, summer, or given a temperature range), type (blouse with sleeve, pants, woolen coat), colour, designer etc. You can search under each property individually or select a few to do a combined search. The “My Wardrobe’s” search function will find the possible alternatives for you and display them on the screen(mirror). Just touch the one you want, then you will be dressed in that outfit immediately.
Well, for everything mentioned above, all are quite implementable except the last part. Its use case realization is beyond our expertise—after all, we have only learnt programming and that part is hardward problem.
Note:
My Wardrobe, as coined by Y, is similar to My Music, My Pictures in Windows. Due to its foreseeable popularity as one of the most frequently accessed folders,esp among female users, we recommend to give it a hot-key just like for the others from desktop/control panel.
Seems quite doable in the future! Quickly, patent the idea, before microsoft does, and earn some money selling the concept ;-)
Hmmm .. just for tropical areas like Singapore, though..
Guus @ 4/5/2005 12:17:05 AM请Please leave your comment here