*Certain people evinced a skepticism when I alleged that, someday, "augmented reality" people were likely to dress as rather glamorous geeks rather than everyday common geeks.
*They can't grasp how a ferocious interest in software and electronics, anda hunger for really fussy, finely-structured clothing, could ever possibly overlap.
*Okay, read this press release. You might want to drop by the event, too. Or you might just hang out ten years until Benetton stores look unrecognizeable by contemporary standards. If the new iPhone release turns out to be a halfway-stable AR platform, I'd cut that estimate down to five years.

Fabrica opens the doors of the fashion store of the future
Fabrica holds a symposium at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz to explore the relationships and influences between digital technology and the consumer's shopping experience
Fabrica, August 2009. Fabrica, Benetton's communication research centre, holds a symposium on September 5 entitled The Future of Retail at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, the world's top interactive arts event. The symposium's aim is to outline new approaches and opportunities for improving customer experience in clothing stores.
Starting from the observation that digital, interactive and network technology constitute an as yet unexplored world of possibilities for fashion retailing, especially as regards customer experience, the symposium will attempt to define possible ideas and future scenarios conducive to offering customers an increasingly advanced, engaging shopping experience.
The Future of Retail is the fruit of a partnership involving Fabrica, Telecom Italia Future Centre, Ars Electronica FutureLab (Linz) and the London College of Fashion. This collaborative effort will continue after the symposium for a year, during which the partners will work together to create a range of innovative clothing store prototypes.
The symposium will include talks by eminent members of academia and established professionals from the business and design sectors (from writer and designer Sabine Seymour to designer Reed Kram, from the head of Telecom Italia Future Centre, Roberto Saracco, to the head of Ars Electronica FuturLab, Horst Hoertner). The speakers' wide-ranging areas of expertise will provide a comprehensive overview of fashion store concept development, focusing in particular on such aspects as the history of fashion retailing, in-store design, branding, visual merchandising, shopping's emotional aspects, and potential future developments.
This event testifies to the Benetton world's unflagging interest in the retail space evolution. An interest that engendered, amongst others, Opening Soon (an exhibition at the Milan Triennale, in January 2009, on the retail space's present and future, featuring a selection of the over 700 creative ideas received from around the world as entries in the Colorsdesigner competition) and Designinginteheran (an open design competition for two multi-storey buildings in the Iranian capital. More than 1,500 entries were received from over 80 nations).
Saturday, 5 September
SKY Lounge, Ars Electronica Centre, Linz, 2 p.m.
More info:
Fabrica Press Office
Tel. +39 0422 516272
+39 0422 516430
