In a textile industry throwback, a new low-res screen made entirely out of thread is now an actualized machine, all thanks to ... Forever 21?
Located in the clothing company's New York City flagship store, the F21 Thread Screen is made up of 200,000+ separate mechanized parts, and uses 6,400 spools of fabric in 36 varieties of color (to put it in perspective, if each unwound spool was placed in a line from end-to-end, it would be over seven miles in length).
According to the F21 website, "all have been custom designed, engineered, and manufactured from scratch" with internationally-sourced materials, including thread and 600 pounds of milled aluminum. This sole-same aluminum is used for the billboard-like superstructure, pieced together with 100 components; additionally, the frame comes complete with slats to keep the thread spools on a continuous loop, with motors and gears attached behind it.
In an interview with Wired, Andrew Zolty, co-founder and CCO of BREAKFAST, the rapid-prototyping creative agency that worked with Forever 21 on the creation of the thread screen, spoke about the imperatives and impetus of the machine, as well as its representative function as a fusion of fashion and technology:
"We knew we wanted to build a Web-connected experience that anyone could try from anywhere in the world. We focused on thread with it being the most basic element of fashion. We also focused on Instagram, as it's the most artistic/creative of social networks, and Forever 21 has a massive following on there (7.4 million followers). The majority of the initial build and assembly occurred over the first 6-7 months, with the rest of the time being a lot of optimization, testing, learning, and fine-tuning."
With social media as the crowning point, creating a fusion-tech-Web triad, the F21 is an immersive, interactive experience — to get an image added to a slideshow, users can add the hashtag #F21ThreadScreen to an Instagram post, and the image becomes a candidate for the F21 queue. The machine will only be up until July 28th, so if you want your pic to be public (in an analog, IRL sense, that is), you better hurry. If you're not in the NYC area, the F21 Thread Screen can be observed via live stream.
See the F21 Thread Screen in action in the video below.
