One Part Geek, One Part Chic: XR Fashion with Electric Runway CEO Amanda Cosco

Published: Sept. 2, 2019, 9:36 a.m.

b'The technology we talk about on this\\nshow is pretty cool, but what\\u2019s function without form, right?\\nThankfully, there\\u2019s plenty of both to go around, as Electric Runway\\u2019s\\nfounder Amanda Cosco drops by to talk about. TL;DR \\u2014 there\\u2019s a lot\\nof cool ways to use XR to stay in-fashion, from virtual try-ons, to\\nAR-enabled hair colour-changing mirrors.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n\\nAlan: Today\\u2019s guest is a great\\nfriend of mine; Amanda Cosco, CEO of Electric Runway. One part geek,\\nthe other part chic; Amanda Cosco is a leading voice in the\\nintersection of fashion and technology. Through her work with\\nElectric Runway, Amanda is committed to bridging the gap between\\nthese two seemingly opposite industries, to help humanize technology,\\nand help push the fashion industry into the future. In addition to\\ncontributing to notable publications such as WWD, Toronto Star, and\\nWearable, Amanda shares her insights through talks given on both\\nlocal and international stages. She\\u2019s made several radio and TV\\nappearances, including CBC\\u2019s The Goods and TVO\\u2019s The Agenda. She\\u2019s\\nbeen recognized as a top woman in wearable technology, as well as a\\nkey thinker on the future of fashion. As a consultant, Amanda shares\\nher expertise in the innovation economy to help future-proof business\\nmodels and save her clients time and money. Amanda earned a master\\u2019s\\ndegree of arts from Ryerson in Toronto, and prior to that she\\ngraduated from York University. She holds a certificate of digital\\nmedia skills from OCAD University. And she\\u2019s the chair of the Fashion\\nand Business Management Professional Advisory Committee at Centennial\\nCollege, as well as the Board of Champions at the Bata Shoe Museum.\\nIf you want to learn more about Amanda and her company, Electric\\nRunway, visit electricrunway.com. Amanda, welcome to the show.\\n\\n\\n\\nAmanda: Thanks so much for\\nhaving me, Alan, and thanks for that kind introduction.\\n\\n\\n\\nAlan: It\\u2019s my absolute pleasure.\\nI\\u2019m so excited. You are a leader in this industry. You\\u2019ve been in the\\nwearable space forever. Tell us how you got started in this.\\n\\n\\n\\nAmanda: Well, Electric Runway\\nactually began with a future fashion runway show that I curated for\\nthe Maker Festival in Toronto. So the brand very much has its roots\\nin performance and the actual runway, but it\\u2019s evolved over the\\nyears. And I had been a part of the burgeoning wearable technology\\nscene in Toronto. And it wasn\\u2019t until I covered a technology festival\\nin Toronto and had the opportunity to interview a cyborg \\u2014 a\\nself-identified cyborg \\u2014 for the Globe and Mail and did a story on\\nhim. It wasn\\u2019t until then that I realized that wearable computing is\\nabsolutely going to change us, as humans. And that\\u2019s when I decided\\nto focus my career as a journalist and entrepreneur on technology on\\nthe body. And that\\u2019s also the time that Electric Runway began. And it\\nquickly became the umbrella under which I do lots of speaking and\\nevents and curation, in order to just bring everything together,\\nthat\\u2019s going on in this exciting industry. And what\\u2019s really great\\nabout it, is that being focused on fashion and beauty gives me a\\nreally specific lens, through which I can view technological\\ninnovations like augmented reality and virtual reality. So, rather\\nthan trying to cover everything that\\u2019s happening in technology \\u2014\\nwhich is impossible these days, because technology is disrupting\\nevery industry \\u2014 I\\u2019m allowed to sit in this niche of fashion,\\nbeauty, retail, consumer experiences and really just talk about how\\nemerging technologies are brushing elbows with these innovations.\\n\\n\\n\\nAlan: Incredible. So you\\u2019ve seen\\na lot of technologies in the fashion space. With respect to\\nvirtual/augmented/mixed reality, I know you hosted an event \\u2014 about\\na'