Over the past few years, Wearable Electronics was a buzz word that generated a lot of media attention and triggered a number of creative people and companies to come up with ‘out of this world’ ideas and concepts.
Unfortunately, this didn’t lead to the point that Wearable Electronic products became a business factor and enter the consumer market.
In the past few years I have visited symposiums with hundreds of experts discussing intensively why Wearable Electronic remains in its infancy and does not grow up as expected.
What is the missing link? Who in the industry should take the lead? The Electronic Industry or the Textile Industry or the Apparel Companies?
Those questions are still hanging in the room and no clear answer has been found so far.
But this is about to change with the latest ‘iPod Fashion trend’.
The iPod enables everyone in the apparel business to work on a fixed connection port (the famous iPod dock connector) that overcomes the many different versions each and every electronic company has for their own Audio player.
To have a standard or, like the iPod where one model that covers almost the whole market, it is more efficient to create compatible products than having to create many different versions of the same clothing or bag style.
The fact that the iPod has such a huge consumer base creates a high probability that a customer, looking for apparel or bags, owns an iPod and is therefore interested into products that integrate his/her iPod into the daily lifestyle.
My conclusion at this moment: the iPod has created a new basis for the Wearable Electronic business and has the power to elevate Wearable Electronics even further to the point where the consumer will take it as granted to have the choice between conventional fashion and Techno Fashion styles.
Soon it will be a matter of fact for other brands to follow swiftly in order to stay on top of the business – the Electronics Companies and Apparel Companies.
I expect for 2007, we will see more new product launches and more apparel companies bringing Wearable Electronic enabled Techno Fashion to the market.
