Utilization Of Optical Illusions In Fashion

ABSTRACT

Eyes take in reflected light off objects around you. They use a lens to focus them onto light-sensitive cells at the back of your eye in a membrane called the retina. There are two ways our eyes perceive an image through, Rods and Cones. Rods are sensitive to small amounts of light; they contribute to our ability to see moving objects. While cones are sensitive to different wave lengths of light, they are solely responsible for our ability to see a range of colours that we can and do. Meaning you only have colour vision in the very centre of your visual field. All the scientific processing happens so fast in out brains, that you are not actually aware it’s all happening.

METHODS:

1. HELMHOLTZ illusion: a shape made of vertical lines will seem wider and shorter then a shape made of horizontal line, the same goes for clothing. This is due to Filled extent, (when shapes seem bigger when they are filled). There is no scientific explanation behind this, its just the way our brain perceives it. This means that the horizontal lines will emphasize the curves of your body and the vertical lines will elongate it when they are on clothing such as a dresses.
2. COLOUR CONSTANCY: Solid coloured pieces of clothing can’t change colour in different shades of lighting, but if a garment has stripes or other patterns, your brain can see it differently due to what we think the colours around it look like. Pairing something brightly coloured with other light and bright colours will make it look more mellow, while if you paired it with dark and saturated colours it would seem more luminous. For example, many people have argued and discussed the famous black and blue/white and gold dress from a few years ago when it was renowned for its mysterious reasoning behind the double colour way. The whole explanation behind the dress being change in colour constancy. I conducted a small survey to see how many people saw each colour. The results were very close and from conducting this verbal survey, many of the participants had strong opinions on their choice and didn’t understand how anyone could see differently. Words such as ‘stupid’, ‘idiot’ and ‘blind’ were being thrown around. It was interesting to listen in and then have the pleasure to describe why it was what they saw due to my research. Which colour do you see?
3. SHADING ILLUSIONS: our brain looks at how things are overlapped and shaded when we are looking at 2D pictures. The famous Stella McCartney ‘miracle dress’ worn by many famous celebrities was made famous for its figure-altering qualities. This is a good example of the illusion. There are many other pieces of clothing with similar figure-altering qualities through the use of simple geometry in fashion. They often have different coloured sections or the use of colour blocking that disrupt your body’s outline, giving you the opportunity to look however you wish. (3D, holograms, psychedelic, visual perception. ) and examples;In catwalks;One of the first holograms ever seen on a catwalk was Kate Moss during the 2006 ‘Windows of Culloden’ Savage beauty Paris shows. At the end of the show as the finale, a ‘ghostly’ Kate Moss appears on stage. She is seen to be dramatically circling and floating inside a prism. Alexander McQueen has always been well known for his ‘catwalk show theatrics’ and his love of exploring new and exciting technologies. The illusion he used is the Victorian parlour trick Pepper’s Ghost.

The Pepper ghost illusion was created by John Henry Pepper. At the end of the 1900’s magic had become its own language and everyone had heard of it. The large theatric area enabled the magicians act to become more and more complex and extreme, with the large spaces to hide mechanisms and assistants, creating the impossible illusion in front of astonished audiences. The post-production house, Glassworks worked alongside director Baillie Walsh and McQueen’s regular collaborators, Gainsbury & Whiting and production designer Joseph Bennett to be able to bring the hologram to life. To get the Right visual look for the whole audience, they had to completely re-organize the architecture and viewing areas of the building so that the whole of the audience would be able to see the illusion from the right angle. It helped that the audience were sitting, being a fashion show, because they were able to create a controlled environment for the hologram show to take place.

One of the harder things to perfect was the fact that the edge of the frame of the footage wasn’t seen. The fix to this was the twirling and movement in Kates dress, which masked and distorted the flaw to make sure the illusion wasn’t shattered, ‘it was technically fiddly and very exciting!’“His shows were pure theatre and that was exhilarating” – MacLeod The stakes are much higher in fashion and fashion shows, with new and sometimes wearable technologies being developed each day. All designers are finding it much harder to impress and shock the audience. There is a large amount competition in the fashion industry, and its growing all the time. One thing that they hadn’t thought about was photos. The flash from the cameras added a different dimension, making it more ethereal. The show was described as large scale, ambitious and filled with great experimentation. Burberry Beijing In April, 2011 Burberry held a stimulating fashion show in Beijing. It was filled with holograms walking through each other and disappearing, bursting into snowflakes and multiplying along the catwalk.

The show was to celebrate the opening of their flagship store in Beijing, featuring high tech projected models. ‘Burberry fashion house took a 360 degree turn and charged into to the future of digital innovation, taking its runway to the whole next level. ’ Avatars wearing Burberry trench coats flew into the clouds, lifted by tartan-lined Burberry umbrellas. The show marked Burberry’s attempt to enter a new era as a tech-savvy company, apparently it is a theme that most companies in Beijing are familiar with. Diesel Diesels June 2007 ‘Liquid Space’ Fashion show held in Florence was apparently the worlds largest and most complicated holographic virtual catwalks created fro Diesel. It was an original by the video designers Clas Dyrholm and Peter Simonsen from Realfiction.

The impact towards the audience of using holographic tech to create a whole world of underwater creatures, alongside models walking down the catwalk was massive. The illusion is known as the Pepper’s Ghost effect. The moving images are projected onto one or more transparent screens while carefully planned lighting illuminates the catwalk. The technology for the show was created by Vizoo. Vizoo is a brand that creates illusions, concepts, design and they produce unforgettable brand experiences.