tech book dress

A new ‘tech book dress’ by Lady Gaga’s ex-designer will feature at the We Invented the Weekend festival in MediaCity this weekend.

The dress is designed by Adnan Bayyat, who preiviously worked for 12 years as an independent fashion designer and designed garments for the likes of Lady Gaga.

Adnan created the dress using recyclable and compostable cling film provided by Wrapmaster, which will carry two iPads, front and back.

The devices will act as promotional tools, providing on-screen animations to grab people’s attention with QR codes stitched onto the dress to direct users to a webpage filled with learning resources based on eight SBS academic papers.

We Invented the Weekend festival in MediaCity 2023.

The web content ranges from cryptic crosswords and wordles to short, animated videos and fictional case studies, developed with AI-assisted tools. The intention is to develop content that would inspire other colleagues in relation to their own teaching practices as well as encourage wider curiosity about the papers among the festival audience.

The project has been developed specifically for the festival with BA Fashion Business and Promotion student Hannah Day to wear the dress among the thousands expected at MediaCity for the two-day event.

Adnan said: “The concept of the dress comes from my theory of ‘wearable pr’, which is the idea that PR firms, businesses and brands have always used the body as a canvas to promote but we’ve never documented it as a form of public relations. There are countless examples in history of this, such as street vendors and banner ladies.

“We’ve always used the body as a space for promotion and as we move towards a world where the metaverse and immersive technology is growing in importance, I feel the dresses are a natural progression of PR that embraces this.”

The bold creation is the result of a collaboration between Adnan who is Salford Business School‘s Knowledge Exchange Fellow and Gordon Fletcher, Associate Dean: Research and Innovation and Saomai Vu Khan, a Graduate Researcher.

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