What is it about..
Empty store is a pop-up exhibition space that aims to support digital fashion artists, by displaying artists’ work and making them interactable with the physical space. Empty store will allow users to interact with the digital assets through the means of AR – merging the physical environment with augmented reality. Creating an immersive experience for the public, will lead to a more effective way to express the voice and vision of digital artists, not to mention how the artworks will come to life in AR, combining the visuals with sound and surroundings.
Why Fashion?
I have always been interested in fashion, how the world and the industry of it works. Especially in the last year I started deepening my knowledge in digital fashion, and I took part in a summer course in Amsterdam Fashion School that taught me how to make 3D garments, and understood how the process to create digital fashion is so similar to physical fashion.
Also digital fashion allows to save so much waste during the prototyping phase, and produces a minimum amount of CO2, which is a good comparison to physical fashion, which is the second industry for pollution production:
Brick and Mortar stores nowadays:
With the fashion digitalization especially after Covid 19, Fashion has been highly affected by this phenomenon, both as regards to the future of brick-and-mortar stores, from a production point of view. A high percentage of physical stores were forced to shut down between 2020-22, leading to the lost the popularity of the high streets, full of retail stores, and to the rise of e-commerce. Many brands changed their strategy, by turning simple retail shops, into a more visual and conceptual exposition space with few garments and accessories.
Such as the South Korean eyewear brand Gentle Monster, that created in every shop a sort of contemporary art exhibition, where the glasses take part in, or Odin Fragrance that rescales small perfumes, making them the center of attention, Jaquemus creating pop-up vending machines where customers can buy all sort of accessories, to Adidas Original making pop up spaces appear, that reflect streetwear culture and Adidas being part of it during its development.
Empty Store, step by step
It will be a space given by LCC, where there will be few physical installations and projections on the walls. Being a pop-up store, the aim would be to make the installation easy for transport and to build once on site. Eco-sustainable materials will be prioritized for the physical elements.
Space would be around 3×3 meters.
Storytelling
Empty store will reflect my experience in London so far and all the challenges this metropolis puts in front of me, in particular, it will focus on the theme of loneliness, estrangement and frustration, and how I manage to overcome these feelings day by day. Therefore, the physical space will resemble common London scenarios where I experience such emotions, and for each scene, there would be in AR a 3D avatar, interacting with the surroundings, wearing monumental, almost theatrical digital clothes, as a symbol of embracing identity, self-expression, confidence, and creativity that help not feeling lost in such a big city like London.
Extra Interactions
As a souvenir from the exhibition I thought it could be fun to have these stickers and encourage people to stick them on their clothes. in AR they would work as Target images and make some 3d asset appear on them.