Details, Kaleidoscope to help men shop Coachella style
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Yes, one part of the Coachella convergence of music and style is about pairing bands with brands (a topic Times fashion critic Booth Moore wrote about for Sunday’s Image section). But the other big part of it is the opportunity for fashion folks to observe what the festival crowd is wearing.
Street style photographs (perhaps ‘field style’ is more accurate) of festival fashions now routinely make their way to service-oriented ‘get the look’ articles in fashion glossies and style blogs, many of which end up running long after the event (or in advance of the following year’s).
But this year Conde Nast men’s magazine Details, in partnership with shopping app Kaleidoscope, plans to dramatically shorten that turnaround time to 72 hours, serving up a shoppable gallery of five to 10 men’s looks from Coachella’s first weekend (April 13 to 15) to the magazine’s website by that Sunday night. According to a Details representative, the gallery will grow by an additional look each day during the following week that will capture the stylish either at the festival or one of the many Coachella-adjacent parties. Another handful of images, culled from the festival’s second weekend, will make for a total of 20 to 25 shoppable looks.
What Kaleidoscope brings to the table is technology that analyzes the images, breaks them down by garment (i.e. poncho, striped cardigan, war bonnet, five-pocket jeans and the like) and suggests where -- from a list of Details’ retail partners that includes Mr. Porter, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and Saks -- the item (or a very similar one) can be purchased. To get a feel for how the technology works,you can test drive a demo version of the company’s mobile app, which is currently only available for Android devices, at Kaleidoscope’s website.
According to Details’ announcement, this is the first time any magazine has used Kaleidoscope’s technology. ‘We are piloting this at Coachella,’ said the publication’s editor-in-chief, Dan Peres. ‘But hope to scale the model to be used in in many different ways.” Peres also noted that the technology fits with the Details readership, which research indicates is ‘socially savvy and hyper-engaged.’
‘They are 105% more likely than the average man to post on social networking sites and four times more likely to Tweet brand recommendations, like a brand on Facebook, and recommend a product online,” Peres said.
If it works as described, the combination of Kaleidoscope’s technology, Details’ festival fashion photos, the retail partners’ ability to deliver in-stock goods, and the two-weekend Coachella schedule could result in a kind of micro trend where what’s worn in weekend one can directly influence what’s purchased for -- and worn to -- weekend two.
Throw in the fact that both weekends will have the same lineup of musical acts and it looks like we’re in for a massive case of déjà vu in the desert.
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-- Adam Tschorn