Destructive fashion

Destructive fashion
Diesel launches interactive windows for its “Destroyed Denim” campaign

By Janet Groeber
October 01, 2009

Animated store windows are hardly new. But Diesel, the Italian fashion brand known for its innovative denim jeans, recently elevated both animation and interactivity to a new, edgy level by deploying “motion tracking” in its Berlin flagship’s windows to devastating effect—literally. The technology allowed passersby to conjure up a tornado-like thunderstorm, complete with lightening and wind, to destroy the living room scene, or knock over objects like lamps and tables, all with a flick of the wrist.

Essentially, motion tracking is a technology in which a camera films motion that is then processed by a PC-based system in real time. Motion tracking (or motion capture) was developed in the ’70s and ’80s as a photogrammetric (remote sensing technology) analysis tool in the field of biomechanics. It then expanded into education, training, medicine, military and sports. Eventually as the technology matured, it spread to computer animation for the motion picture and video gaming industries.

The window vignette Diesel debuted this past June can best be described as art-installation-meets-video-game—only this time, the game set is life-sized and 3-D. Part of Diesel’s “Destroyed Denim” campaign, the window was conceived to connect with a younger target customer, explains Michael Haiser, founder and managing director of German creative agency LIGANOVA, which Diesel tapped to design and construct the window. While anyone who has ever played a video game has experienced motion tracking, this is the first time a version of the technology has been applied to a retail window installation, Haiser notes.

In a tableau more Dorothy’s tornado-swept Kansas living room than chic fashion-forward apparel brand, the window graphics encouraged onlookers to “Hit the hot spots on the screen,” and to “Play with the weather.” (Here the “screen” is done up as a nine-paned exterior window.) Spectators’ spontaneous movements caused lights in the window to flicker and drapes to flutter, and sent other objects flying about thanks to the industrial-sized floor fan that responded to the motion.

“There was no need for the customer to touch anything to have control over the window,” Haiser explains. Thanks to the motion tracking technology, customers standing in front of the store were able to move objects by moving their arms and hands as they would a joystic. For nearly a month, crowds could be found—day or night—jumping in the air while waving and pumping their arms in front of Diesel’s Neue Schönhauser Street store in Berlin.

While LIGANOVA handled overall design duties, Berlin-based Deon conceived the game and the interactive elements, and Neumann & Müller supplied the technical solutions. Installations were later rolled out to other Diesel stores in Germany, including Hamburg, Cologne, Düsseldorf and Stuttgart, for a four-week run. Additional interactive windows are also planned for Diesel stores in Milan, Tokyo and New York.

“Diesel and LIGANOVA evaluated the technical possibilities to translate the Diesel Denim campaign Fall/Winter 2009 into an emotional interactive bond between the brand and the consumer,” says a spokesperson for Diesel Germany’s marketing department. “[Diesel customers] are curious, brave, fashion-minded. [They] want to have fun and enjoy their lives without taking life and themselves too seriously. Their look is casual, informed, but always individual. Design, art and music play an integral part of their lives.”