Night Lines: When Nerds, Fashion, and Manny Delcarmen Collide
Bostonista doesn’t need another reason to adore the Museum of Science, but last night’s event, Seamless: Computation Couture—the sold-out nerdfest-meets-design fashion show—sealed the deal. Project Runway castoff Steven Rosengard, whose ill-fated encounter with glue and a wedding dress led to his dismissal on Episode 5, emceed the show filled with algorithm-produced knitwear, WiFi-detecting jackets, and solar-paneled necklaces.
First conceived by the Weekly Dig’s lifestyle editor, Christine Liu, and buddy Nick Knouf in 2005, Seamless has ballooned from its humble beginnings at the MIT Media Lab into a 1,000+ throng of grad-student types, fashion mavens, and odd characters (yes, we mean you with the LED-woven bathrobe and hat).
Bostonista chatted up Red Sox pitcher Manny Delcarmen, who strutted German designer Markus Kison’s vanity ring down the museum’s escalators-turned-runways. Kison’s ring displays the ultimate 21st century status symbol: your number of daily Google hits.
Delcarmen said that while he’d consider sporting the bauble off-runway, it wouldn’t last long. “Once I get my World Series Ring, I definitely won’t wear it.”
While the vanity ring is definitely a self-esteem booster for some (Delcarmen’s number was a healthy 73,300), we’d just as soon wear a ring that trumpets our weight.
Frankly, the evening’s highest-tech offerings were dubious. We aren’t too sure about the Charming Burka, which transmits your photo via bluetooth, but we did love Ebru Kurbak and Mahir Yavuz‘s NewsKnitter sweaters, which are woven using internet news feeds. Also charming: Valérie Lamontagne’s drool-worthy Moon Dress, whose Thermochromic painted flowers change color according to the monthly lunar cycle.
Now if only someone could have made a dress that warned us to avoid the Fleet Center’s crowds of Spice Girls-lovin’ 14-year olds on our drive home last night…
—Ann Lucas
Photos by Lisa Richov: Steven Rosengard chats up the crowd; Manny Delcarmen shows off his ring; a dress by Grace Johnson featured a spring-loaded tail of peacock feathers, which the model could maneuver up and down with a lever.
