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The End of the Supermodel

All those tall pretties, don’t be sad. You’ll still have some print work — maybe. It’s sad to see that we may never see another human being strutting their stuff on the catwalk during fashion week in New York City. Why bother?

It’s a venture for many worth looking into for one reason: money. Do you have any idea how much models get paid just for walking a runway? For wearing clothes? Let’s just say that a supermodel can live off of it pretty stress free. But thanks to technology, it’s slowly becoming a dying race, this supermodel race.

Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen on Fashio... 

Image via Wikipedia

Enter: the realm of robotics.

Just two years ago, a scientist by the name of Masayoshi Kataoka invented a novel creation: the automated catwalk model. Yes, a robot. Take a look at sorc.org and see for yourself!

Now you’re probably laughing right now: imagine a walking robot wearing fashion clothes on the runway. Ideal?

The fact was that this 158-centimeter-tall, outlandishly designed automaton hardly impressed the masses because of one important reason: the robot didn’t act human enough. Mostly all it did was stomp around like a walking toaster and ‘pose’ in a way that a model should, only this walking toaster wasn’t a human model as in this photo. It was almost a mockery.

For that reason, the job security of the supermodel remains safe. But for how long?

Technology is rapidly evolving — almost on a daily basis. How long will it take before the runway crawls with walking robots wearing Gucci and Ralph Lauren? Modeling agencies better keep tabs on the times — for the future is coming.

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New Model, No Replacement

Models on the catwalk 

Image via Wikipedia

The dangers of automation have forever been whispered — with men exchanging their uncertainties, warning of the potential worries. Machinery, it’s assumed, is too much of a convenience. It will eventually consume the middle-class, stealing employment opportunities and forcing millions to be without support.

Such claims are met with caution, and a little disbelief. There is much still to debate about the influence of robotics on the economy.

There can be no debate, however, that one position will forever remain human: fashion modeling.

In 2009 Masayoshi Kataoka (member of Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology) unveiled an automated catwalk model. The robot — which stood 158 centimeters and boasted exaggerated features, offering a deliberately cartoonish appearance — debuted at the Institute amid a flurry of photographers. This collection of wires and battery-powered operations received commands via a transmitter and was told to pose like a fashionista.

The results were less than thrilling.

The machine lacked the fluid motions of human models, stomped her way instead down the runway. Her expressions were perpetually startled and her figure did not lend itself to the ideals of fashion. The effect was simply too jarring.

And, because of this, the job security of models remains in tact. Few can deny the novelty of a robot posing for the camera. Fewer still, however, can deny that the attempt is ultimately futile, with the purpose of style meant to embody creativity and not science.

This has led many to propose alternative uses for Kataoka’s invention — none of which involve the fashion industry.

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American Made by Robots

People are looking more and more at buying clothing that is “Made in the USA”. For years there was a drain out of the United States of manufacturers who could not compete with foreign pricing. Many companies pay their employees less outside of the country than they do within the United States. Significantly less.

These wages could be much better than what the employees could make outside of the factory so they are really helping these people. Nonetheless, this does not help the American who has lost his or her job to a worker in another country. Now these jobs are beginning to come back. Recognize that they are different kinds of jobs than what left.

The US cannot compete with the low wages of foreign countries, but we can compete technologically. More US textile manufacturers are putting in more computer controlled systems with robotics doing some of the work.

Cutting out fabric can be controlled to a level that humans cannot manage. With a robotic system cutting the fabric from a bolt there is less waste and greater precision. A size six is always a six and will wear exactly the same from garment to garment. Much of the sewing can now be done robotically and with speed and precision.

As these systems are implemented there is need for trained technicians to watch and quality check the robotic systems. They need to know how to tweak the system to keep them running optimally. They need to understand the robotic and computer systems to keep them working and to fix them when they do break down.

Yes there are fewer humans per bale of clothing leaving the factory, but there are now more Americans employed in the clothing industry than there were just a few years ago. Thank you robotics!

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Installing the Right Survey

Building a brand of any kind online takes a long time. It’s not an overnight process, but building a clothing brand online can feel like an eternity. The brand you set out for the world will always take time to catch on. Fashion is a tricky thing. What is hot today will be out of fashion tomorrow, but then come back en vogue in a few years. However, this uncertainty shouldn’t discourage you from finding how your brand is doing and how it could be improving.

Since you can’t meet face to face with these customers it’s important to install a customer satisfaction survey to your website so that users can rate their experience doing business with you. The people you are ultimately trying to please are the ones that have shown a willingness to buy product from you before. These people need to be happy and getting their thoughts in a survey might be the very best way to do it.

Many people look at surveys as a hindrance and something meant to set you back but the survey, when filled out appropriately can provide meaningful insight into how your clients see your business. It’s important to know not just what they think but why they think it. Just knowing they aren’t interested in shopping at your site again would not be helpful. Finding out they are in disagreement with the prices will tell you a lot about your business, whether you can fix it or not.

The surveys themselves can be fully customizable. You can choose to ask whatever questions you would like. It’s only fair that you ask what you think matters to help your business in to the future. Getting feedback from the kind of people that pay the bills are definitely important to the overall health and success of your business. Not just for now, but for the future.

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Sewing Patents

Sewing by hand has been around for over 20,000 years. Starting with needles made of bones or animal horns these sewers used animal sinew for thread. The 14th century brought iron needles and the 15th century added the eye to the needle.

Patents for sewing machines that did not work were issued from 1755 to 1818 with seven different men trying to mechanize the process of sewing. Finally in 1830 the French tailor, Barthelemy Thimonnier invented the first functional sewing machine and was almost killed in the riot from French tailors who torched his garment factory, burning it to the ground. They were afraid that his invention would put them out of work.

Walter Hunt created America’s first working machine in 1834. He did not patent the machine because he was afraid of causing unemployment with the machine. In 1846 Elias Howe became the first American to receive a patent. He later fought against Isaac Singer, and won, a patent war based on the lockstitch that he invented. Singer paid the patent royalties. For Howe it was a boon economically as the next 13 years saw him earn close to two million dollars from the lockstitch he patented, up from annual earnings of $300.

The first chain-stitch sewing machine using a single thread as invented by James Gibbs and patented in 1857. The first woman to patent a sewing machine was Helen Augusta Blanchard who patented a zig-zag stitch machine in 1873. She would eventually have a total of 29 patents for improvements including surgical needles and a hat sewing machine.

It is because of these sewing machine pioneers that we enjoy inexpensive, durable and well made clothing today. Without them we would still probably have just one or two drab outfits to wear.

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Cotton: Durable and Beautiful

Cotton has been used to make clothing for thousands of years. Cotton is a wonderful source for clothing as it is soft to the skin, durable against the stresses placed against it and can be dyed and woven into many colorful and attractive patterns.

Cotton is grown in the southern United States and in many other countries with like climates around the world. As the plant matures it has a fluffy boll that surrounds the seed of the cotton plant. The cotton gin, invented by American Eli Whitney in 1793 and patented in 1794, was a major boon to the cotton industry.

This invention allowed more cotton to be grown and harvested without having to use as much slave labor to produce clothing. Separating the fluffy boll from the seed was time consuming and painful. The seed is sharp like a needle and will prick the workers. There is a reason that much cotton clothing was colored reddish brown throughout history.

After the gin has removed the fluffy boll from the seed it intertwines the fibers into cotton threads. Now the cotton can be used for many different uses including yarns, laces and threads. Each of these creates different textures of clothing and allows the clothing manufacturer to create many visual variations, all using cotton.

These variations are created on looms which are large mechanisms where the cotton is woven into row upon row of interweaved patterns and become cloth. This woven cloth can either be made directly into the end product or it can be cut and sewn into a new garment. The versatility of cotton cloth is one of its major strengths.

Add in the fact that cotton effectively retains colored dyes and the clothing manufacturer can add even more variety to the clothing they are producing. Today it is not unusual to see clothing racks at a store and each garment is virtually identical to the next with color and size variations being the difference between the clothes. Intricate weavings of the yarn, lace and tread can create stunning garments that are beautiful and durable.

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The Evolution of Clothing

Bianca Rinaldi

Image via Wikipedia

In today’s world everyone wears clothing. Anthropologists estimate humans started wearing some form of clothing between 100,000 and 500,000 years ago. This is a long history of placing something over our bodies to hide our nakedness.

The first clothing was made from animal skins, animal furs, grasses, leaves, bones or shells. Different people throughout the world created different coverings depending on their surroundings. They would look around and use what they found to create some form of clothing. The bible teaches that Adam and Eve made “coats of skins” after leaving the Garden of Eden. As ancient man used animals for food they also used their skins to provide warmth and comfort.

Anciently clothing was often draped or tied. People learned how to make wonderful draping garments. It was woven as a circle from the beginning and you draped it over you to stay clothed and warm or cool. Many people around the equator wore clothing to protect their bodies from the head of the sun. It was not just people in cold climates that used clothing.

After needles were discovered people could sew arm portions to the body of the garment and have more form fitting and much more functional clothing. Weaving itself was a major change and then humankind discovered the sewing machine.

We still wear clothing that is made from animal skins, animal furs, grasses, leaves, bones or shells, but natural and synthetic threaded garments are by far the norm and often these ancient materials are used as creative add-ons to the garment. They are now the baubles added to make it look beautiful or different.

Today, each of us no longer has only one or two sets of clothing, painstakingly put together by our own family. We now purchase clothing that is inexpensive and durable. Each of us often has hundreds of different garments we wear. The evolution of clothing from “you kill it, you wear it”, to today’s inexpensively mass produced clothing industry is impressive and we as a world have embraced this change with open, welcoming arms.

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From Textiles to Insurance

Berkshire Hathaway was a textile company that was started in 1888 by Horatio Hathaway. By 1962 Warren Buffett started to buy shares in the company because he believed that it was heavily undervalued and the price of the stock would come up. Buffett gradually increased his share of the company until he owned 49% of the company and used his votes to change the management of the company.

He put Ken Chase in as President to run the company and Buffett, himself, looked after the financial infrastructure of the company. Shares for Berkshire Hathaway were bought by Buffett for $15 a share and were selling at $18.

During this time Buffett began to use Berkshire Hathaway in two roles. Berkshire Hathaway continued to produce textiles as the core business and Buffett used them as an investment vehicle. As time moved on Buffett knew that the industry was struggling against the cheaper foreign production of clothing. Buffett realized that the mills were struggling and kept them open for years past what they probably would have without him. By 1985 the mills of Berkshire Hathaway were not even tentatively profitable and he closed the doors to the textile portion of the business.

At this time Buffett moved from one commodity business to another, insurance. Through Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett eventually acquired GEICO General Insurance Company in 1994, having owned stock in the company since 1943. At the time Buffett acquired GEICO their situation was similar to when he bought Berkshire Hathaway. They were both fundamentally sound companies which were heavily undervalued and Buffett felt that both would do better with him running the financial side of the company.

With Berkshire Hathaway even Buffett could not keep the textile company alive against the flow of textile jobs out of the United States. However, with GEICO his genius was able to shine through. He has helped make GEICO into the third largest insurance company in the country. We all know the green lizard that is their spokesman. GEICO insurance is what it is today because of a failed business investment in the textile industry…Berkshire Hathaway.

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Ordinary People Inventing Scissors

Your three year old child picks up her cute little scissors and cuts through the paper. As she does so you almost totally ignore her. Her scissors are sharp enough to cut the paper but have blunt ends, plastic parts and they are difficult to actually hurt her. This was not always so.

Scissors have been around for over 3,500 years. They apparently were first invented in Egypt around 1500 B.C. and were made of bronze. Each piece of metal was sharpened on one edge and then each scissor rubbed against the other scissor using a fulcrum to provide the pivot. They then cut the paper or cloth or whatever needed cutting. Slowly the scissors spread throughout the world.

The Romans, in about 100 A.D., improved the design by creating cross-blade scissors. Most of the improvements to scissors are lost in time and we cannot trace their origin. Somewhere in time someone found that greater control could be found by adding a screw or rivet in the middle of the two scissors and adding loops for fingers.

Londoner Robert Hinchcliffe, in 1761, invented steel cast scissors. Today almost all scissors are steel cast for the cutting edge. Children’s scissors will have the steel cast blades with plastic handles and coverings to protect the children from cutting themselves.

Scissors needed to be sharpened to be effective. To protect the edges artisans would often place them into a cover, usually made of leather. As they were often handmade they did not just throw them away when they were no longer sharp. Scissors in a family could last for generations.

There is not much known about the history of scissors. What we see above is all there is known about it. As people made improvements they just made them and continued working. To most of them it was just another tool and not all the extraordinary. Most of the improvements were made by ordinary people making ordinary changes to an ordinary piece of equipment. No big deal.

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Manufacturing Robots

This world is one in which virtually every single inhabitant depends on the forces of science and technology to survive. This is true to a greater or lesser extent. In this regard, it is important to know that in various industries, manufacturers have incorporated the use of robots in the various stages of manufacturing. This is a measure that helps to bring down the cost of production to the barest minimum in addition to maximizing profits. Apart from that, it is also important that the robots are always more efficient and effective than their human counterparts.

However, what we do most of the time is to stress the fact that robots are very useful in the manufacturing of goods, forgetting the important fact that in the first place, the robots themselves have to undergo a manufacturing phase too. In terms of manufacturing robots, one thing that always comes to mind is the fact that there are some nations of the world that are regarded as the ‘natural leaders’ when it comes to the manufacturing of robots. In this club, one will find Asian nations like Japan, South Korea and China. In Western Europe, the Scandinavian countries of Finland, Sweden and Norway are also strongly regarded while the United States of America is a leader as well in the robot industry.

To manufacture robots as an individual may not be very easy. In fact, it is so challenging and capital intensive that in many cases, robots are manufactured by government corporations or large industries. However, either private or public, there are some general features. One of this is the fact that to manufacture robots on a large scale, funds that will run into millions of dollars will be needed. Apart from the capital, you will also need to hire those that have the necessary expertise and get government approval.

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