Marchesa, a couture designer, collaborated with IBM to create a stunning dress for the Met Gala with a theme of "Manus x Machina". The dress was designed with the help of cognitive technology, from the concept to the finished product. Marchesa focused on five significant human emotions - joy, passion, excitement, encouragement, and curiosity - to be represented by the dress through colors and images. IBM Research used a cognitive color design tool to comprehend the psychological impact of colors and the interactions between emotions and image aesthetics.
The collaboration resulted in a dress that integrated technology into the fabric itself, which Karolina Kurkova wore at the MET gala. The dress had LED lights embedded in it and tapped into social sentiment from Twitter users through Watson Tone Analyzer. The dress changed colors in real-time as public conversations around the Met Gala unfolded online, allowing Met Gala enthusiasts to join the cognitive conversation on the red carpet.
So if you ever wondered "Can we design a dress that thinks?" the answer is yes.
This ad, with the dress, was shot at the PVA Expo in Prague.
Ad Agency: Ogilvy
Creative Director: Niels West, Rich Wallace
Agency Producer: Joe Maire
Designer: Jennifer Williams
Location: PVA Expo Prague
Production Company: PYTKA
Director: Joe Pytka
Executive Producer: Gretchen Siss
Line Producer: Michal Skop
DOP: Joe Pytka