Schiaparelli transforms electronic waste into high fashion

One of the most visually stunning pieces was a long-sleeve mini dress made entirely of tech waste. Each piece was pulled from gadgets produced years before smartphones took the world by storm.

Made up of loose wires, electronic chips, and the shells of old brick phones which acted as broaches, the dress sparkled and shined – commemorative of a time long gone.

There was also the inclusion of a Swarovski-encrusted ‘robot baby,’ similarly made up of motherboards pulled from Motorolas, Nokias, BlackBerrys, and other popular mobile phone brands from the 2000s, when mobile phones were a novelty and diversity in tech was booming.

In a moment behind-the-scenes, Roseberry tentatively discussed the subject of Artificial Intelligence. He questioned what machine learning means for all creatives and gave his opinion on AI interpretations of his own work.

‘What differentiates us as humans is our memories. I think of this as in music—like in an album where you have all these different references being mixed together,’ said Roseberry.

‘[The collection] is all pre-2007, which is now basically prehistoric technology, things like the flip phones, the CDs, the calculators and things like that,’ Roseberry said.

‘A lot of people on TikTok have been taking AI and turning my collections into digital collections and seeing who wore it best, so I was thinking, the only card I have to play now is really my memories.’

Although the recent Schiaparelli show strived to imagine the future by reminiscing on the past, these tech-fashion pieces simultaneously stand as representation of how rapidly we consume goods in today’s society.

Like trendy clothing, modern technology is bought, used, and forgotten about at almost light-speed. There seems to be a never-ending stream of ‘newness’ that we feel me must attain, so much so that we eventually become nostalgic for what once was.

Schiaparelli’s pieces managed to be beautiful, eye-catching, and certainly high-fashion, while cleverly prompting us to think about where we’ve come from – and what the future might look like if we continue along our current path.

Despite Daniel Roseberry’s worries, one thing is for sure:  AI certainly can’t offer us that deep of a dive into nostalgia.

At least not yet.