Tery:

Um, hi, I'm Terry Spataro and I'm your host for hundo's Digital Fashion for CareerCon. My journey started decades ago by studying traditional commercial art, before graphic computer graphics were the norm, and I was fortunate to be one of the pioneers, um, to go from traditional art making to digital creative direction and in the early dot com era, so, which was really interesting, this was a time where science and art were beginning to come together. So my training allowed me a unique perspective as to not only comprehend the depths of color and technique and style that were rooted in our history as well as in traditional making of art, um, to harness the power of digital advancements.

So I leveraged my experience to establish one of the first digital agencies and eventually landing executive positions with famous, um, Madison Avenue creative digital agencies. I do have a BFA but then I realized I needed to get a little more business training. So I went on to get an MBA so that I could learn more about business ethics law, um, operations, and also fortifying my, um, profile as a diversified creative director.

So over the years, and to this point in time right now, AI has been my fascination as well as my creative resource. And I not only used, um, AI to train it on my patterns and models that I've made, but I also use generative AI as a way. Um, Identifying specific projects that I wanna work on, which range from things like commercial, like such as doing brand branding, illustration, advertising, even strategic communications and content creation.

Um, my AI driven creations have also found a unique. Application in fashion by creating what I call surface designs or patterns for accessories and clothing. So embracing the future of fashion, I in turn, produce only on demand products, so it's print on demand products. So I found two manufacturers, one that's located in the UK and the other is located in Canada.

Right now I'm working on an exciting fashion project, which allows me to take the ethos of a community and translate it into their unique flair and style and allow them to identify with, um, the company that has asked me to do this. Uh, I joined Skyrocket Systems - it's a management consulting firm that's a pioneer in helping, um, brands as well as businesses understand what AI can do to enhance their creativity.

Um, and let's, let's go on and talk about digital fashion. So, digital fashion has emerged as one of the groundbreaking domains where the realm of style can evoke this boundless creativity and yet, Remains deeply rooted in sustainability, and that's a really important thing to focus on now more than ever with the powerhouse of AI, or artificial intelligence, has transformed digital pattern making into innovative efficient process that generates designs that were once considered unimaginable. Using AI algorithms, we can train machines to learn from vast amounts of fashion data, adapting and predicting trends while providing unique personalized clothing designs. So there is this really big paradigm shift that also extends to print on demand, and fashions, um, and it's the focus is to reduce waste and also transform the fashion industry's carbon footprint, like lowering the carbon footprint is what we want for all industries. Additionally, with the rise of virtual reality or VR, and augmented reality, In this space facilitates digital try-on experiences, creative, the creation of surreal artistic digital clothing that transcends the limitations of physical patterns and fabrics.

This is an amazing time in a great way of looking at digital patterns and, um, digital fashion as a way of augmenting your own personality. So the amalgamation of digital fashion with AI doesn't merely hint at a future. It is unequivocally illustrates the future of costume. So, and I had the like the pleasure of seeing some really beautiful, groundbreaking creations by Xander Love and Kenn Mayfield, and I learned a lot about how digital fashion lends itself to the extension of our own personality, which is exciting.

So now I'm gonna go on to defining what is digital fashion. So digital fashion refers to clothing accessories that are created and consumed in digital formats rather than physical formats like I'm wearing.

It is a concept that has gained popularity in the recent years, driven by technological advancements and the growing influence of digital media. So let me take you through a quick little presentation to give you some illustration about what digital fashion looks like. Okay. So here's something that I really think is earth-shattering, and that is the growth of digital fashion will be 4.8 billion US dollars by 2031.

That's super exciting for anybody wanting to get into this world and, uh, super exciting because I think there will be a tremendous decrease on what may happen environmentally. So that's good. SYKY is an amazing collective. Um, Digital fashion designers, Stephanie Fung, who we will focus on a little bit, has done some amazing creative pieces, but SYKY is more than just the, the clothing and garments. SYKY also produces accessories and also your total look and appearance from here to makeup to, uh, jewelry and things like that. So here's a little thing. Um, actually I own this piece. Stephanie Fong is an amazing digital fashion artist. Um, this piece I bought really early on, I think I bought it a couple years ago, and it's an NFT So NFTs is another way of, um, producing your work and putting it out there in the world, and like collectors like myself, look for pieces like this to add to our NFT collection.

But Stephanie's work is exciting and let's just take a quick little look at what she does. There's a like the piece behind her. Oh my God, these are gorgeous, like forward looking, beautiful pieces. And the next one though, we'll talk a little bit about, and I think you should investigate more, is called DRESSX.

I, love what DRESSX is doing. I like the mission that the company has taken on. The founder's quote up here. "Sometimes people will buy an outfit and just wear it a couple of times, take a picture in this outfit, and then they return it." So even though the carbon footprint may not be as significant, it does have impact.

And these are some of the like, really gorgeous pieces. These kimonos are just beautifully designed. There's great surface patterns on them and they're just outstanding. Price points are 200 each. But if you get a chance and you wanna look um further, I would take a look at the interview that Dell did, which is outstanding on the, uh, the founders of Dress x.

So Fashion Zero is also, um, provides tools or an application so that you can have a way of looking at your digital garment in this virtual reality setting. And then this is great. This is, um, Highsnobiety. Um, the jacket to the upper right corner here is amazing to see, but you can also use your phone and see what you would look like on it and take your picture that way.

So all these digital fashion designers are really thinking not just about like creating these gorgeous pieces, these exciting pieces, but also about like what the impact on the environment. Here are a couple of things that I designed myself, like, I like science fiction, so I'm often thinking like, what my, what will my science fiction characters wear?

So this is an experiment, um, for one of the characters in the book that I'm working on. And then I thought, wow, what would a interesting futuristic wedding dress look like? And then these are just samples that I've created. Actually the t-shirt dress you can actually get, um, it's print. These are print on demands, but you can see the AI surface design patterns to the right. And these are some of the things like if you don't want to go into designing the dress itself, you can actually do, or the garments themselves. You can actually create the patterns and do that.

So I'm super excited. We have an amazing, um, group of people that are going to talk to you about digital fashion for hundo's CareerCon. Um, this is the world's first immersive, um, careers event. It's a monthly series that's designed to connect and help employers, teachers, parents, and students navigate this world that's becoming increasingly uncertain. So the, um, following the success of CareerCon hundo is rolling out this monthly series, which is exciting.

And now let's go into the agenda.