Drums and Bots + A Last Supper

After partnering with SpecialGuest to make a short film that launched its Spring/Summer ’18 collection, rag & bone again engaged us to create an innovative, artful introduction to its 2019 fashion collections. The brand, known for pushing the boundaries of classic design, wanted to stand out in the Fashion Week noise year after year.

SpecialGuest highlighted the fashion line’s penchant for innovation by bringing new technologies to the runway. Using AI and robotics, we designed unique experiences for rag & bone at the Fall/Winter and Spring/Summer Fashion Weeks.

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We collaborated with AI writer Ross Goodwin, developer Elie Zananiri, and director Jay Harwood.

For 2019 Fall/Winter Fashion Week, rag & bone turned its back on the traditional fashion show in favor of a 50-person VIP dinner party at which guests showed off the season’s looks.

This dinner, called “A Last Supper,” was hosted by artificial intelligence. Using machine vision and a language-based neural network, the AI host was able to identify things in the room and talk about what it saw. By the end of the night, the system had gained enough data to explain what it thought a dinner party was. With original music from Thom Yorke and choreography from Damien Jalet, the evening was memorable, not least because it was for many guests the first time they truly understood what is possible with AI.

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The breakthrough technology campaign continued on to the runway for 2019 Spring/Summer Fashion Week, this time with a semi-autonomous robot. SpecialGuest created a bespoke robot, equipped with a video camera and LIDAR sensor, that followed the models and looks on the runway and fed the content back to screens at the event.

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rag & bone’s Fashion Week shows gained equal attention from tech and fashion publications including Fast Company and Vogue. “A Last Supper” alone received 778.6 milion global impressions. SpecialGuest co-founder Aaron Duffy was even invited to speak alongside AI and robotics giant SAP on a panel about the tech achievements in fashion.

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These campaigns have been so successful because they’re not just stunts. Today, culture and technology are inextricably linked. If it is fashion’s job to show the world what is new in culture, then rag & bone has done Fashion Week right.