Banana Flame's Webcam Social Shopper

AR is the wave of fashion’s future, adding another layer of interactivity and just plain awesomeness to the shopping experience. Adidas introduced sneakers last year, the Originals Augmented Reality Pack, featuring AR codes on its tongues that when scanned would lead to interactive games online. T-shirts by London’s Cassette Playa have AR codes that reveal horns and other weird shit on its wearer’s heads.

And in April, Burberry had an Augmented Reality fashion show in Beijing with hologrphic models catwalking side-by-side with their real life counterparts.

Fashion mags are also getting into the AR groove, with Dazed & Confused having implemented AR codes in its March 2010 issue that, when scanned with a webcam, made “the pages come alive on your screen, as a fashion film is superimposed on the magazine image,” explains the pub’s editor Rod Stanley.

As the idea of a virtual closet has tantalized me since the sartorial heyday of Cher Horowitz – everything inevitably comes back to Clueless — Augmented Reality offers a viable, though not completely perfected approximation. Though one can get the general idea of what a prospective purchase may look like via Banana Flame, the touch, the feel (of cotton) and the actual fit of the garment isn’t replicable…yet.

For now, Augmented Reality is this cool gimmick used to entice and intrigue — much like the current craze over 3-D — but unlike that gimmick, AR has the potential to completely change the way we shop — and you don’t need those funky glasses, either. [NYT]

Banana Flame's Webcam Social Shopper

And in one last ditch effort to save print, Esquire is launching an “Augmented Reality” issue featuring Robert Downey Jr. The issue is using the same technology used to produce the yellow first down line in football to produce an interactive issue. The codes (like the one shown on the cover) will display video or commentary from Robert Downey Jr. throughout the issue, and even include a Lexus ad.

Link