Applied Series: Immersive Tech's Fashion Moment with Matthew Drinkwater & Fashion Innovation Agency

One of the OGs of London's Fashion Tech Scene
Matthew Drinkwater, the force behind the Fashion Innovation Agency, part of London College of Fashion, is arguably one of the OGs that set the London fashion tech scene in motion over a decade ago. In this interview with host Peter Jeun Ho Tsang, Matthew shares his journey to building the agency from scratch drawing his part experiences in retail and working with brands in Japan. Starting with fashion wearables and eventually pivoting to immersive tech, we hear how Matthew used his learnings to now by working the likes of Mulberry, Lucas Film, and Microsoft.

Immersive Tech In Fashion
In this episode Matthew elaborates on what immersive tech can do, thinking digital fashion, virtual retail experiences, virtual stores, and more. With  FIA's unique positioning between education and commercial, we discuss what this means for fashion brands, students, and industry professionals that want to tap into immersive tech.

Connect with Matthew on Linkedin.
Find out about the Fashion Innovation Agency: fialondon.com

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Transcript

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 0:03

Fashion Tech Applied is published, my co-authored book taking you through six chapters uncovering the technologies and innovations powering the fashion industry. I'm Peter Jeun Ho Tsang, founder and CEO of Beyond Form, and welcome to the special podcast series Applied. Each episode, I'll be sitting down with incredible fashion tech professionals that are featured inside the book. On today's episode, I'm sitting down with Matthew Drinkwater, head of the Fashion Innovation Agency, an agency based within the London College of Fashion, building immersive fashion experiences.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 0:37

Matthew is probably one of the early OGs within the London fashion tech scene. A title that I've given to him that he shies away from. However, having been around for more than 10 years, he and his team have certainly set the tone for the possibilities of fashion tech with a lens of digital and immersive tech. This episode took me back to the days of being a staff member at LCF, and it was a privilege to be able to record in their new building based in Stratford. Matthew is featured in chapter four of the book about marketing, and together we discussed the exciting advancements of immersive tech, including a Hollywood level film studio that he's about to get his hands on.

Matthew Drinkwater: 1:15

Working alongside Lucas Film for a few years to develop the project at London Fashion Week with Stephen Tai was a very, very big moment. It's not often that you get to work inside a real Hollywood studio. I mean it was incredible. I at Star Wars was my childhood. Be able to walk into Lucasfilm on a semi-regular basis is something which never stops to amaze.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 1:38

Let's get into the conversation with Matthew on this episode of Venturing Into Fashion Tech. How are you today, Matthew? I'm really well. Thanks, lovely to see you. Thank you for having me and looking forward to this conversation. We're set in the new London College of Fashion building, so congratulations, first of all, for getting him in here.

Matthew Drinkwater: 1:57

Thank you. Yeah, it's been a long wait, but we're here.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 2:00

It's been a very long way. I'm kind of jealous that I didn't have this when I was studying here or working here we did wait specifically until you left. I reckon that. But I remember seeing the plans like 10 years ago, something like that, and we were all like is this going to come to life the way it's supposed to do on paper?

Matthew Drinkwater: 2:22

Yeah, I mean so 10 years ago. We're probably my first conversations about the move here and the idea of Stratford being a location for us, and it did seem like a fantasy at the time.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 2:33

But now it's a reality.

Matthew Drinkwater: 2:34

It is.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 2:34

So for our listeners, just imagine in your head we are sat in the middle of Stratford, east London. The new beautiful building London College of Fashion is open. We have next door the V&A that's right. On the other side is Sadler's Wells that's right, and behind us is Westfields. Yep, I'm kind of jealous, to be honest. Yeah, it's.

Matthew Drinkwater: 2:55

I mean, it is an extraordinary new location for London. It's a £1.1 billion investment from the Mayor of London, this new cultural quarter for London called the East Bank, and, as you mentioned, london College of Fashion, sits alongside V&A East Sadler's Wells. There's a BBC production studio next to us as well, and UCL East as well. Their robotics division is located here, so it's this really fascinating quarter of creativity technology academia. Yeah yeah, it's very cool and the building is somewhat spectacular.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 3:36

And I think it's going to be very interesting just to see, as you say you call it a creative cultural quarter and in the years to come, what happens, obviously, with fashion, what you're doing with technology. We shall see what happens.

Matthew Drinkwater: 3:49

Yeah, I mean, I think genuinely whether the area will come to life in the next 18 months or so as the V&A opens and Sadler's Wells opens, and I think you'll see all of those different skill sets, abilities coming together and collaborations have already started between all of those institutions. But I think honestly just that movement of people through a space is something that brings it to life and, yeah, I think honestly what the work and how it, the new building and the new environment, how does that begin to impact on creativity is going to be fascinating to watch.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 4:27

So I call you one of the OGs of fashion innovation. I don't know if you won that time, but I'm going to call you anyway.

Matthew Drinkwater: 4:35

Yeah, yeah, I mean I did 11 years now at the college doing it. I guess back then there weren't many of us.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 4:43

There weren't many of us, and I studied the digital fashion program with Sue Jenkins-Jones in 2010. You're not here yet, actually.

Matthew Drinkwater: 4:51

Yeah, so I started in 2012, 13, something like that, yeah.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 4:57

So unfortunately it was a little bit ahead of his time. I would say that specific program. There was no fashion innovation agency. There was no figurehead such as yourself leading digital fashion, fashion innovation technology within fashion. We're going to talk a bit about that today and how you have grown it over the last over 10 years, more than 10 years. Before we get stuck into it, you're featured in chapter four of the book Fashion Tech Applied, which is all about marketing, building virtual worlds, building immersive experiences.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 5:31

So, just for some context, immersive fashion is on the ride, with brands activating a lot of campaigns, including virtual stores, augmented reality campaigns, gaming and the like, digital fashion and more. So there's a lot of activity happening which I'm sure you're going to talk about some other technologies later on. According to CoreSight research, 55% of US brands surveyed are planning to increase their investment into immersive experience over the next three years. It's a big deal. People are looking. They want to pour money into it.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 6:05

I'll be interested to see what you think that is going to do for immersive fashion, in the way it says three years, but obviously we're looking at that along the time horizon as well. At the top of the list of technologies to invest in are virtual stores, according to the survey, which 88% of brands that have activated virtual stores have seen a significant to moderate increase in sales as a result of their efforts. I'm sure you're going to share some insights later on. However, with so many options available now, it can be confusing for brands to decide which immersive tech to use and the direction to go in, and I know that you have a gazillion conversations with fashion brands about which direction they should be heading in. Before we get into that, matthew, tell us a bit about your background. What journey did you take to lead you to fashion innovation, and specifically at LCL?

Matthew Drinkwater: 6:59

Okay, as we said, I've been here for 11 years now leading the team, creating and building the team, but I guess prior to that my career has always been in retail and, fortunately, around retail technology. So I started my retail career at Harrods back in the late 90s, then moved to Japan and worked in Japan for 10, 11 years using technology to begin to impact on consumer journeys, both in store and online as well, in those very early days of e-commerce. And I guess over time, the proximity to fashion, and particularly London fashion, started to grow closer and closer and the opportunity came to to join the college in 2013, january 2013. So I was given a blank sheet of paper by the college to build the innovation agency and look at how we could use technology to innovate designer business models, fashion and retail business models, and I guess it's been something that, like the use of technology ever since I was a kid.

Matthew Drinkwater: 8:03

I was a gamer child, obsessed with whatever you could do within virtual spaces, even from a young age, and I think being able to match up that desire to build new experience, begin to genuinely impact both physical and digital worlds, is something that I always wanted to have that opportunity to do. And so, yeah, bit by bit, and we were able to grow the team, grow our presence, grow the impact of what we were doing. I think you will well know that in 10, 11 years ago, these were things that weren't easy to convince fashion brands to experiment in and so, yeah, we've been very fortunate to, I guess, grow our presence and deliver more work over that time.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 8:45

So with being in Japan, a different world culturally did the Japanese teach you anything?

Matthew Drinkwater: 8:51

Yeah, I mean I learned a lot over that time period and a lot of how to approach from a different perspective and I think kind of being within a minority in a kind of more homogenous society felt like an interesting challenge, and how to effect change within structures is something that you learn over time in Japan. But also there was a propensity to to utilize technology to deliver new experience. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a core memory for me and one of the the most important places. Japan and Tokyo is a fun place to see tradition meeting kind of more high-end technology and where you can begin to create relationship between both but also respect craft heritage but also embrace something new. And those are things which I think kind of get replicated and I get asked about a lot within the fashion industry. Are we looking to replace all of the traditional ways of working? No, we're not. We're looking to enhance it.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 9:55

So when somebody asks you, are we replacing traditional methods with technology, are they saying you're out of fear, curiosity. They just don't know what is the context there for that question, all of those things like?

Matthew Drinkwater: 10:11

one of my colleagues wrote a PhD on kind of the lack of adoption of retail technology and Francesca Bonetti is the colleague and I remember very distinctly her kind of listing through all of the reasons why brands weren't engaging but all of them started with a fear, a fear of failure, a fear of cost, fear of being first, fear of being second.

Matthew Drinkwater: 10:33

All of those things.

Matthew Drinkwater: 10:33

There's a lack of knowledge, a lack of understanding of technology, and I think those are things that we took kind of at the core, as the mission of the team is to begin to effect change, both externally and in industry, if we can begin to demonstrate what any emerging technology could do, create those examples, show them to the industry, show them where skill sets are going, how this might impact their business, but then also to bring all of that learning back into the university, put it outside, into our space here, into the maker space, into the digital learning labs that we have, and send out another generation of creatives who have a much better understanding of those technologies and whether it's 3D printing or artificial intelligence or any immersive technologies that they understand how they can use that technology, even if it's not kind of hands-on hard coding experience.

Matthew Drinkwater: 11:28

It might be just the understanding of that technology and where it might implement across all of our schools. So, whether it's the fashion business school, the school of majoring communications or design and technology, we know that the technology that we're working with is going to impact their roles in the future. They have to understand that, and so I think it's that response from industry that we saw in those early days that kind of really inspired us to make sure that we had state-of-the-art available here at the college so that we could really, at grassroots level, begin to make significant longer term change.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 12:03

And you mentioned that at the start that you were literally giving a blank sheet of paper, which does not happen very often. No, lcs, no, which is quite nice for you. Having worked as a member of staff here, I kind of know how it works, but I didn't see this. Oh, the thing is that simple and easy within academia structures, that is true. How do you describe the fashion innovation agency in a very simple way, and why your reason of existence? Why do you need to be here? How did you fill in that blank piece of paper so?

Matthew Drinkwater: 12:35

I mean the longer answer is that we were spun out of a European funded project to innovate design of business models. But the reason for existence is to be that bridge between the fashion and technology worlds. We are there to be a north star for the industry, to show what is coming and what is possible with the technology, but we are also there to filter and cascade that knowledge back into the university and send out that next generation with the knowledge. And I think also one of the things that we really became very aware of is look, we're in a university. The questions about why to come to university are growing year upon year. I wanted LCF to be one of those places that had an infrastructure that was world class, that by coming here you get access to technology that would be impossible to get hold of elsewhere, and so that's what we've done.

Matthew Drinkwater: 13:29

Over 10 years is through the success of our work. The investment that we've been able to make in the university means that we have state-of-the-art photogrammetry. We have up on our seventh floor 130 camera photogrammetry rig, state-of-the-art motion capture, volumetric capture. What else are we doing? Virtual production we mentioned earlier. So in the next couple of months we will install a new virtual production stage that really, when you walk into this building, it's like walking into a state-of-the-art Hollywood film production studio, and so, whether or not you're creating physically and you want to place those garments into virtually an environment, you'll be able to do that at an incredible level. Or if you're creating natively in 3D, that we give you the very best that there is available. That's what I want.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 14:19

That's super exciting a Hollywood studio inside a university. I'm so excited to see what you do. I will. You have done lots of things, obviously, so far, but what you continue to do. You're getting your new rig in the spring of this year, so that's going to be the next game as well. You're featured in chapter four of the book, which is all about marketing and specifically PGO section is about creating immersive experience. All of the technologies that you've just mentioned help to enable all of that. Four brands, you know, looking at things like immersive brand experiences, virtual worlds. Where is the fashion industry at this moment in time? What are they doing right and what can they be doing to step up their game?

Matthew Drinkwater: 15:05

I mean I think I talk a lot about leadership within the industry and a need for more engagement, like we need to see better equities, better skill teams. The main message is that we are shifting to many more 3D experiences. 3d will be really important for the industry. We're seeing a lot more students with 3D design capability, 3d animation, game engines. These are kind of the backbone of what new experiences for the fashion industry will be built on. So what does fashion need to do? They need to be employing more as those students building 3D teams shifting in that direction.

Matthew Drinkwater: 15:40

There is still an awful lot of work to do, like we know from all of our research that 3D models will improve check-through rate On websites, they will increase conversion rates and they will reduce return rates. It has taken too long for the industry to recognize that and to understand that if they build in 3D, they can cut wastage through supply chain, they can make a smarter, more intelligent supply chain and ultimately, the experiences they can create can be more interesting than they currently do. There is a lot of work to be done. There are some luxury brands who are beginning to engage and there have been some who have been doing a lot for a long time. I think of Burberry. Here in London we have a very well established 3D team and have done for a long time, but we still don't see enough of that across the industry at large.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 16:29

Is that a case of the team members in those fashion brands? They haven't been trained on these opportunities. They haven't been trained on how do you deploy such an innovation project within a fashion brand. Does that therefore mean they're playing catch-up and it's just moving too slowly?

Matthew Drinkwater: 16:44

Yeah, I think largely that is the case. I think it's a shift in mentality that is required and that can be challenging because it's you're looking at old traditional practice that people feel very attached to and you're looking to show new ways of improving that. So, yeah, there can be resistance, but Hugo Boss are a really good example of a big brand who have a huge 3D team. You know, really use that to improve across every element of that business. So, yeah, it can be done, it can be achieved and it can have really significant impact on bottom line. I mean, our job isn't to improve the here and now, that is. I feel like we've, over 10 years, shown that there is an impact that 3D will have. We're looking even further, beyond what those new experiences can be.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 17:34

What is your time horizon that you work on?

Matthew Drinkwater: 17:36

We typically look three to five years out, which in hardware, I feel really comfortable about, and I think we're in a good spot and I feel like I understand what's happening there. With some of the work we've done in generative AI. I think three to five weeks is a bit of a stretch. I can't even imagine where we're going to be in three to five years, so there are kind of challenges in doing that. But I think when you look back at the work across tech news you can see where we've been, the areas we've worked in and how it's filtered through into the industry.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 18:17

And obviously we're talking about fashion brands here in the core of Gress, but you're sat in the section of academia students commercial fashion brands. What is the response?

Matthew Drinkwater: 18:27

from the students. I mean the students are fully engaged, like you can see, across multiple technologies, their final projects, their postgraduate students and PhDs, who are all engaging with technology, that the request we have for multiple software licenses is constantly increasing, so there's real appetite and an understanding of where they want to use those technologies. So this is something that will come. We know it's a generation shift. But also, I think, what's really exciting, like LCF has always been known for its links to industry and we see our industry partners being impacted by that, and I look at some of the graduates who have come out in the last few years going into positions that didn't exist even three years ago. It's really fashion designers at Metta and data scientists at Google. They are going to make a change to the industry.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 19:22

I think that's super exciting and I'm always seeing on X or LinkedIn or Instagram or wherever you're somewhere in the world giving a conference, a talk of some sort. Did you want to plan it that way or did it just happen because there is so such a void and such a space that needs to be filled?

Matthew Drinkwater: 19:41

So I think it happened quite naturally because I think we recognized there was a void. There weren't many people doing what we were doing, and actually we recognize very quickly how much noise you could generate by delivering these projects. So if I go back to 2014, when we did the Tinkerbell Dress with Richard Nicolette Studio X, so that dress had something like 200 million impressions across social media back in 2014 and became almost this poster chart for where technology and fashion could sit, and it it was probably the initial project which lifted us up onto another level and started that kind of cycle of let's go tell the world about this kind of thing. But I think one of the things that has been really important to us is that we don't like, as a team, it's our work that we're going to talk about. We can only keep that cycle going if we're delivering projects, and so it's been really important for us to, whenever we're going out to talk about the work, it's what we've done and I think that credibility in what worked, what didn't work, just being a bit more honest about the technology.

Matthew Drinkwater: 20:55

We're not a vendor. We're not looking to sell a product. We'll certainly sell our expertise to anyone that's listening, but I think we wanted to be a neutral voice for the industry, to be a trusted voice for the industry, and so I think it's something that happened naturally. But obviously when you see an opportunity, it's like well, let's keep this going, let's have a voice in the industry not just me, but the rest of the team as well.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 21:21

You say that it's awesome that you guys, being honest and open about what hasn't worked. Have you, in your more than 10 years now, actually FIA where you just thought, okay, this project was a complete disaster, Things didn't work or this conversation was a failure, they didn't get me or I didn't get them, type of thing? I mean?

Matthew Drinkwater: 21:44

there's certainly been projects which have never seen the life day simply because the technology didn't work, and there'll be certainly a lot around wearable technology that we wanted to achieve. When I think back to 2013, 14, 15, there were a number of projects we were looking to deliver around flexible printer electronics that you know. Just, we were never able to find what's the purpose of this, beyond kind of all of the technical challenges of embedding circuitry into garments. We were like what are we actually doing here? And I think it's important for us to be able to tell that story as well. Of course, we'll always go talk about the success stories. This is social media, right. Everyone talks about the good stuff, but when you're sat with the team, we have that expertise of stuff that didn't work to and that would go across a lot of the immersive work as well.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 22:39

So I remember in a previous conversation that we had when you first started the FIA, it was very much, as you mentioned, they're looking at the wearables, the electronics integrating them, but then there was a gradual shift into all of the immersive work that you're doing now. How did you come to the realisation that actually, maybe wearables isn't the direction for fashion innovation and we need to have a different lens on it?

Matthew Drinkwater: 23:03

Yeah, it was a gradual process and it came through a lot of the difficulties that we were finding around, kind of what is the purpose of this? I think when you start to add a level of functionality to clothing through electronics, it begs the question of what do I want your shirt to do? And these aren't questions that we ask ourselves every single day. We were beginning to move away from the emotional connection to products and I think for us, it's always been to use the technology to create that very visceral feeling that fashion should bring to us. There's a reason why we've fallen in love with products, there's a connection to it, and I think those are things like the time that we were beginning to run into issues. We were seeing more and more work, the interesting work in 3D, and started to experiment with that. We had about 2015, 2016-ish, and started to do a little bit more work there and, yeah, I guess that started to become a bit of a snowball effect.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 24:08

So when you're presenting a guest to the board of LCF that you do want to change a different strategy and direction, how is that taken? Because obviously in academia and education things don't work as smoothly or as easily. It's not a commercial environment where you can just change like. That is what I'm trying to say. So how did they take it?

Matthew Drinkwater: 24:29

So I guess that's one of the really unusual things about our position within the college is that we sit as this interface between the technology world and the fashion world. It's very difficult, as you well know, for universities to pivot quickly. The academics, on a daily basis, will talk about where do they look to as the people who are able to inform them about what's changing. That is our job is to be that pivot, for the university to be that point at which we can say this is a difficult area, let's explore, let's begin to experiment. Universities need that level of agility, and in traditional structures they don't have it, and so us as a team, having that freedom to do it, is something that remains really important. We've had incredible support over the last 10, 11 years to be able to do that. So actually, we've never really had those issues. We've always had incredible support to say sure, if you think that's the way to go, let's do it. And so, yeah, I'm incredibly grateful for that, because I'm very conscious that not everybody has that.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 25:50

Not all team members at LCF get that, no, and it's easy to maneuver in such a way just for context, for our list, as, for example, to validate a program at LCF that was going to take at least two to three years. If we talk about technology, in two to three years it's going to be obsolete already.

Matthew Drinkwater: 26:09

So that is why we and the Digital Learning Lab, who are attached to us next door, which is the student interface to the work, is something that has become elective. So if we're working with a new technology provider and they give us a new headset, for example, to work with that over time, once we've finished our work, we want to pass that headset into the Digital Learning Lab so students have access to it. It's not something that is baked into the curriculum. There is elective courses for them to come and choose if they want to experiment with mixed reality, virtual reality, wearable technology, and so we can give them whatever's latest within that field. But we're not hindered by that process of trying to bake it into the curriculum. So it gives us much more agility. We can be much quicker to give them access to it at a time which feels relevant.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 27:05

So I should go back to the book. Then the fashion tech applied. There's a whole interview with you featured inside the book. You mentioned in that interview your work with companies like Mulberry and Microsoft. Those are two very different organizations. So how do you go about scoping such projects that are totally opposite ends of the spectrum and in some cases, the people that you are speaking to. They're so far removed from fashion innovation. It's going to take them a little bit while just to understand the brief itself.

Matthew Drinkwater: 27:40

So it's a really good question. I think we think long and hard about every project, like, are we being driven by technology or are we being driven by need and fashion? And actually, largely because we're a technology team, we're leaning into what are those technology trends? What are the opportunities there that will allow us to experiment? That is then bringing fashion along with us, sometimes kicking and screaming, sometimes very forthcoming, but I think we always land with what is the opportunity for us to demonstrate where technology is going.

Matthew Drinkwater: 28:16

I said that the remit is sort of three to five years away from commercialization. With Burberry, that was a 3D scanning project in 2016. We were scanning some of their accessories to begin to look at quality against physical product and virtual product and impact of click-through rates, that kind of thing, and could we stitch together even from existing imagery and to create 3D models? And actually the Mulberry team were incredible. They were really willing to trust to do that.

Matthew Drinkwater: 28:47

From a technology side, it's always been easier, but you do see this discrepancy where technology doesn't really understand fashion and so they need an interface, and fashion, for a large part, doesn't really understand technology and so you need that skill set as well. So, yeah, I guess it's a constant ebb and flow of where is the need of the industry, what do they feel is right? How do we push the technology in a way which enables you to storytell and to create something which feels relevant for fashion? It's not an easy process, but I guess over the course of a decade or so you get a sense of where there will be an opportunity for fashion and where, on occasions, you might push it too far.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 29:35

So in the case of Microsoft, you mentioned that this was Microsoft's case but in the case of technology, doesn't understand fashion. Was that the case of Microsoft? Like, how did you get them to understand? Ok, this is where fashion is with tech. How can we merge it together?

Matthew Drinkwater: 29:51

Yeah, microsoft. They've been from our early days one of the earliest supporters of the work and I think they saw opportunity themselves within the industry for their tools that they were developing, and so we were. I guess over that time period we've created numerous examples, but they saw that opportunity, like we did, to get in at grassroots level to begin to utilize their tools to change the way that people were creating collections or showcasing collections, whether it be through mixed reality and HoloLens and then later through artificial intelligence. And that is not always the case. You don't always have that very open and honest conversation that we had with Microsoft and I remember some very honest conversations about we're not doing PR stunts, let's actually get in.

Matthew Drinkwater: 30:39

So we ran an incubator project with the students and then an accelerator project to try and take some of the ideas that they had around technology and utilize what Microsoft had to actually build startup ideas. Those were things where it was very practical. Let's make a difference with the technology. That's always kind of what you want the technology, and we get a lot who will come to us and say we're developing this, how would this have a role within fashion, could it? And sometimes yes, sometimes no, but you have to be kind of honest about the limits of technology and what it can deliver.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 31:19

I think it's interesting how you say that there, because I see that not just from the fashion corporate side, but also from startups as well. Most of the founders that I work with comes from outside of the fashion industry, so they always come to us and be like OK, I've had this idea for a piece of tech, I have a prototype, maybe. Yeah, does this work for fashion? I knew like, well, I don't know, does it work for fashion? Why have you created this in the first place?

Matthew Drinkwater: 31:45

Yeah, I think similarly. I've had many of those conversations. I think there's a perception of the industry from it outside, but it's not as well understood as it could be. We need to bring and honestly we need to be pushing our graduates with skill sets based and grounded in technology, who will begin to affect the change in a more meaningful way. I think that's when you'll start seeing really significant change. The university has the Creative Computing Institute Obviously you have to hear it in London College of Fashion Many students graduating with a much deeper understanding of technology. And so, yeah, longer term, I think you'll see just some more natural processes. Whether those guys are starting their own businesses or going into established businesses, they'll work with technology in a more meaningful way.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 32:40

Do you have a favorite?

Matthew Drinkwater: 32:40

projects that you've ever done. There are lots. I mean we mentioned the Tinkerbell Dress with Richard Nicoll, which I think for us as a team had a very significant impact. For me personally, working alongside Lucasfilm for a few years to develop the project at London Fashion Week with Stephen Tai was a very, very big moment. It's not often that you get to work alongside a real Hollywood studio. What was that like working with a film studio at Lucasfilm? I mean it was incredible.

Matthew Drinkwater: 33:16

I grew up through the 1980s and Star Wars was my childhood, so to be able to walk into Lucasfilm on a semi-regular basis is something which never stops to amaze. But also those moments where cutting-edge VFX and studios like Lucasfilm, who have always been known as pushing the boundaries of what technology within the film industry could do, when they call you up and say we're working on something we'd like you to come and have a look, is that you just never get told it's exciting. And I think when you get to deploy it and begin to show, in that instance where we overlaid real-time rendered visual effects onto a physical location, it's kind of metaverse. Before metaverse was there of this vision of what the world could look like with digital content everywhere, physical models engaging with digital models all happening in real time, the environment changing in real time. It was a magical experience to begin to go from inception, and that project was over two or three years From inception to delivery. It was an extraordinarily exciting thing to do.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 34:31

I can just imagine you now. We see you in that claw from Lucasfilm and you're in a child just being awakened all of a sudden.

Matthew Drinkwater: 34:40

With the team. The team will record those stories very well. Yeah, it was great and I think we retain those contacts to this day and to have that relationship. I think also from a creative perspective, you can have those conversations with teams who sit outside of fashion as well and you begin to look at what's happening in visual effects, what's happening within film production to begin to alter their course. Through whether it's artificial intelligence or immersive, you can see how other industries are being impacted and you learn so much of what we could do. So it's, yeah, just from that perspective, it's so rewarding.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 35:21

I just want to finish off this interview with a quick fire round of questions. The first answer that comes to your head Yep. Are you ready? I'm ready. Have you read fashion tech up high yet On the list? I don't read it soon. Ha, ha, ha, ha ha. Biggest tip for brands that want to create their own virtual worlds Do it. Top two things brands are getting wrong when building immersive experiences Making it too obvious.

Matthew Drinkwater: 35:47

Yeah, I'll go longer, but I mean it be aspiration, Do something amazing.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 35:53

Favorite brand that you've worked with so far.

Matthew Drinkwater: 35:56

Oh, not answering. They're all amazing Very diplomatic.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 36:00

But if you had to really choose one, ha ha, ha ha.

Matthew Drinkwater: 36:02

Seriously, I think they're all. Anyone who's brave enough to step in and do something, I will always applaud. So more we want more.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 36:11

One brand that you'd love to work with.

Matthew Drinkwater: 36:15

Um, I think I won't say one brand because I think I, honestly, I want brands to be more, brands to be more experimental. I think there's lots from a technology side that you could look at all of the big tech and, whether it's big tech or a startup, if they're doing something extraordinary, I want to work with them. I want to work with those people that have the desire to do something exciting.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 36:42

So, for anyone listening, matthew wants to work with all of you.

Matthew Drinkwater: 36:46

Ha ha ha ha yeah, let's do it.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 36:48

Let's just do it. Yeah, thank you so much for your time, matthew. It was lovely to see you.