Electric Runway Podcast

In this episode, fashion and beauty futurist Amanda Cosco speaks with record-breaking entrepreneur, founder, and CEO Kendra Bracken-Ferguson. Kendra is a thought leader, founder, venture capitalist and the CEO of BrainTrust Founders Studio. She is someone who has witnessed—and been a part of—the changing landscape of digital media over the past decade. Her recent book “The Beauty of Success: Start...

When we think of soy, we often think of candles or an alternative to milk, but what about the role the crop plays in the business of fashion and beauty? In the US, soy is second only to corn in crop size, and it's playing a significant role in transforming many industries.   My guest today is Carla Schultz. She's a soy farmer from Michigan and a United Soybean Board Director, and she&apo...

Biotechnology is an exciting frontier in fashion and beauty because it presents a new way forward. Most products on the market today rely on extraction for their ingredients, whether that's from plants, animals, or petrochemicals. Each of these options has a footprint. With biotechnology, there's the opportunity to create new sustainable supply chains with new levels of performance for c...

From leather grown from mushrooms to sequins made from plants, biomaterials is an exciting area of innovation that is projected to reach almost $50 billion by 2025. Briefly put, biomaterials combine science and technology to engineer new ways of producing materials. Biomaterials are rapidly gaining popularity with brands and consumers alike due to their ability to address the fashion industry’s ur...

In today's episode fashion and beauty futurist Amanda Cosco sits down with Heather Lipner, the Head of Product Design + Creative and Geenee AR. Geenee enables high-quality web AR virtual try-on for eCommerce and In-feed Ad experiences to increase sales conversions, reduce return rates and drive return on ad spend performance. Visit Electric Runway: http://electricrunway.com/ Sign up for the E...

Recently, black beauty influencers have taken to TikTok and other social media channels to call out brands that don't have inclusive shades.  Today's podcast features a conversation with Balanda Atis, a L'Oréal chemist, and their Chief Scientific Communications Officer. We spoke with her in May in Toronto at the launch of L'Oréal's True Match Foundation to understand how s...

Snap has come a long way from puking rainbows. The company has been steadily developing its artificial intelligence and augmented reality technologies for years, and is now rolling out a B2B SaaS offering for retailers and merchants. ARES, or Augmented Reality Enterprise Services, enables clients to leverage Snap's 3D viewer, virtual try-on, and fit-finder solutions into their brand-owned app...

Advancements in science have opened up new possibilities for fashion manufacturing.  One promising application of biotechnology in the textile industry is the development of lab-grown or "cultured" materials such as leather and silk. These materials are created by growing cells in a lab, without the need for animal agriculture or the use of harmful chemicals. By doing so, they offer a mo...

When we think of smart fabrics, we often think of fabrics with sensors inside them meant to monitor our body's activity or temperature, but not all innovations in fabrication are digital. In fact, most of the time they're chemical. Today's guest on the Electric Runway Podcast is Fi Paziana, a Milan-based ex-investment banker-turned fashion designer who is launching her debut collect...

By now,  we're all a little weary of talking about digital fashion, and the trend has certainly seen its peak in the hype cycle of emerging technology. By digital fashion, we're talking about fashion that exists only digitally and not physically, and is meant to be worn on social media, on platforms like Zoom, and inside games.  Our guest today is Amber Jae Slooten, the co-founder and cr...

During the pandemic, retailers and brands had to transition quickly to digital to continue to do business, and the fashion industry was no exception. A number of brands like Puma and retailers like Selfridges experimented with virtual showrooms—which are defined by Shopify as:  an innovative solution that lets brands and retail buyers engage and sell products through an online platform. It replace...

The Electric Runway podcast is taking a break for the summer. We'll be back in the fall with more episodes covering the future of fashion.  Have an idea for an episode, or know someone who would make a great guest? Email amanda@electricrunway.com and follow us on social media @Electric_Runway.

If you’ve been following fashion innovation for the past year, it seems you can’t open up Instagram or read an article without hearing about The Dematerialised. And probably for good reason.   The brand is on a mission to create a new reality for fashion through experimentational collaborations and campaigns involving digital lifestyle assets, including digital outfits, accessories and footwear.  ...

They say that necessity is the mother of invention, which may explain why a crop of emerging fashion designers who were just starting out at the onset of the pandemic were able to innovate the way they reach their community in a Web 3 environment. My guest today says that her brand is not about the clothes, but that the clothes are an entry point into the brand, which is all about harnessing the i...

Our guest today is Christine Marzano, a fashion-tech entrepreneur who just raised $5.6 million in funding for her startup BODS. She counts celebrities and activists like Karlie Kloss as investors. BODS is on a mission to transform online shopping into a personalized and immersive experience that's inclusive and fun. She shares how her background as a model and working in the film industry in...

There is no shortage of software trying to serve the fashion industry, but few products really understand the industry itself.  A crop of startups throughout the world are all trying to solve the problem of fit when it comes to shopping for apparel. If you’re a regular listener to this podcast, you know the challenge of fit is something we’ve talked about again and again and will likely continue t...

Here’s a question for apparel retailers: how do you close more sales with shoppers and ensure they don’t return the items they purchase from your store? Answer: make sure they’re happy with the experience and the product they ended up with. For a long time, an easy way luxury department stores and some high-end retailers ensured customer satisfaction was by offering free tailoring. But with more p...

The metaverse continues to present narratives of transcendence, where people can be whoever they want to be despite their physical limitations. But as we continue to build the internet of tomorrow, it’s important to pause and ask, who is being afforded these narratives of transcendence, and who isn’t?  And perhaps more importantly when it comes to disability, how can we incorporate disability inst...

Lately, it seems conversations everywhere end up at the metaverse and web 3. And while fashion is definitely playing in this space, we’re starting to see metaverses emerge that are specifically for fashion.  My guest today is Badrriya Henry,  the co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Semblance World. Semblance World is a 3D world built in Unreal Engine. It aims to be the premier destination f...

We've been hearing about 3D in digital fashion, in creating the metaverse, and even in augmented reality. 3D is defined as photorealistic representations of real-world objects that can be used for a variety of purposes, including retailing, merchandising, assisting sales, and of course entering the metaverse. According to Shopify, merchants who add 3D content to their online stores see a 94%...

As the metaverse takes up more cultural capital than ever before, several upcoming events will explore the implications on the fashion industry. Most prominent among them is Digital Fashion Week New York, a three-day part digital, part physical experience that will include educational seminars, digital screenings, and even an augmented reality art walk. On this week's episode of the Electric...

The global pandemic has disrupted supply chains all over the world and the fashion industry is of course no exception.  Global manufacturing and distribution is a much bigger challenge than ever before. Our guest today is Tricia Hoke, the founder and CEO of Modern Brands. Modern Brands is a membership program for apparel companies that helps streamline the production process using a variety of too...

Virtual fashion, NFTs, and crypto clothing have all become hot topics during the pandemic, with brands such as Dolce and Gabbana , Gucci , and Karl Lagerfeld stepping into the space. But how will digital clothing impact the way we present ourselves online? Just as face filters have transformed the way we (especially women) see ourselves, so too will digital fashion.  In episode 130 of the Electric...

Virtual showrooms- 3D clickable, user-centric branded spaces—were once a nice-to-have, a way of testing out futuristic experiences in a way that complements a company’s physical retail footprint. But with the ongoing pandemic, virtual showrooms are becoming a meaningful way of extending the customer experience, especially ahead of the holiday season.  In episode 129, Fashion Futurist Amanda Cosco...

At the beginning of December of this year, I'm attending my first conference since Covid, but I won't be leaving the comfort of my couch. I'll be strapping on an Oculus Quest 2—a virtual reality headset produced by Facebook— to attend one of the first fashion metaverses. Inside, my avatar will brush digital elbows with Vogue editors and network with other fashion professionals; I&ap...