Digital whizz Cleyon brings the future to London fashion show

The University of Northampton is believed to be the first-ever institution to harness augmented reality technology to display student work at Graduate Fashion Week.

Visitors to the show were able to download a special app which would then display augmented reality versions of fashion students’ collections when they viewed the University’s event brochure via the screen of their device.

Watch the video below to see the app in action at Graduate Fashion Week.

The project was the brainchild of talented Northampton Games Art student, Cleyon Johns.

He arranged for 360 degree photographs to be taken of mannequins wearing a selection of outfits created by Fashion undergraduates for Graduate Fashion Week. Cleyon then used software to stitch the images together and form 3D computer models of the outfits, which were then able to be viewed via a device using off-the-shelf app, ZAPPAR.

The project was a huge draw for visitors who flocked to the University’s promotional stand at Graduate Fashion Week, which was held at The Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, London, between Sunday 2 and Wednesday 5 June.

Cleyon said: “When I started the project, I had my doubts that it would work, and it took a lot of trial and error until things started to run smoothly.

“The reaction at Graduate Fashion Week was amazing – it was great to be at the event to watch people’s reactions, it really caught their attention.”

Clayon at the photoshoot

Clayon’s app in action at Graduate Fashion Week

Cleyon Johns at Graduate Fashion Week 2019

Gavin Douglas, Senior Lecturer in Fashion, said: “Cleyon excelled our expectations in producing the first ever UON fashion brochure with an augmented reality feature.

“The brochure was extremely well received at GFW and we had so many people come over to the stand to see it in action, they were all really impressed.

“We have really enjoyed working with Games Art on this project and we hope to embed further digital technology into upcoming fashion projects; the future of fashion combined with digital technology at UON is exciting.”

Cleyon will be presenting his work at Digital Northampton’s Merged Futures event at Waterside Campus on Friday 14 June. Find out more about Merged Futures on the Digital Northampton website.