Last week saw Fashion Rocks - the international charity fundraising event which brings together the fashion and music worlds - descend on New York City with a truly amazing line up. But apart from all the acts (did you SEE Jennifer Lopez?? OMG) and fashions, there was a very special project bubbling along backstage... the first ever social media-based fabric was created, and designer Christian Siriano has created a dress and caped jacket out of the material!The project was fronted by Verizon, the mobile giants, who encouraged people to Tweet in their thoughts on the music performances and the clothes. The #SocialImprint fabric evolved through certain music words changing the colour, and fashion conversation influencing the pattern. Screens backstage showed the progress.Instyle.com tell us more:

Every 30 seconds, the eight most popular topics and their associated colors were arranged onto a row of fabric, and from there, the pattern was fed into an industrial printer and produced in real time. “That’s the cool thing, if everyone is talking about Jennifer Lopez and the color assigned to her is turquoise, then the pattern is going to have a ton of turquoise in it,” he said. “We’re creating the print based on what people are loving and what they are reacting to throughout the night, and I think that’s the cool challenge. It’s never been done before and it’s exciting." (Siriano)

How very Matrix! What a genius project. It was only a matter of time until our social voice created something other than a load of loud internet noise. We've seen dresses made from actual mobile phones, so why not progress to the next level? Sceptics might see this is a bit gimmicky, but I do actually love the fabric. Might this be something that will grow? Maybe we'll see other designers actually using #SocialImprint to create fabric for their collections?Alison Bishop, fashion/tech trends consultant said:

The visualization of social data is a trend to watch going into 2015. Tech companies are keen to show how big friendly data can be turned into highly creative, design led projects like this one. The fashion & tech worlds are converging and consumers are beginning to see the benefits of personalization via their data.

An interesting thought! What say you?