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There Will Soon Be an Opening Ceremony Wearable Device

Photo: Vivien Killilea/Getty Images,Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Fashion people may just be getting used to their Nike FuelBands – and to the idea of seeing more than one Glasshole in the front row at Fashion Week – but within the coming year, there will be another fashion-y wearable on the market. Intel will collaborate with Opening Ceremony, Barneys, and the CFDA on a new wearable device, the company announced on Monday night, the eve of the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas. While the design of this product (and its price point) hasn’t yet been announced, what we do know is that it will be a bracelet, designed by OC’s already prolific Carol Lim and Humberto Leon. The device will be sold at Barneys (making it the first-ever luxury store to sell a technology wearable), and OC. The CFDA is partnering with Intel from a strategy perspective – which may signify the beginning of a longer-term collaboration between the company and the fashion world.

“At Intel as a company we are looking at different partnerships in the wearable space,” Ayse Ildeniz, vice president of business development and strategy for Intel’s New Devices Group, told the Cut. “We actually think the fashion industry should be in the driver’s seat for [wearables] in many ways. Up until today, we’ve seen that tech companies are largely driving it, but because wearables are so personal, and because you have to wear it as a reflection of yourself, that the fashion industry should be driving it.” 

The new product, she says, will utilize a number of new innovations – and while it’s unclear what those will be, it’s hard not to look at another product Intel debuted on Monday: Jarvis, an earpiece that can make dinner reservations for you at a restaurant if you say something like, Jarvis, I’m feeling like Indian food tonight. And though it’s a man’s name (named after the assistant in Iron Man, Ildeniz explains) it sounds like it most closely resembles Samantha from Her. It’s unclear whether Jarvis and the Opening Ceremony wearable will have much in common – or enable cross-platform use — but Ildeniz says: “People want to have 24/7 access to Internet, news, their children, to their loved ones. If we can bring them in a stylish manner, I think we will have achieved our goal.”

Opening Ceremony Will Make a Wearable Device