‘Exploding’ t-shirts become mobile app-arel

By pointing your smartphone at images on a T-shirt, the face of Minnie Mouse becomes a puzzle game, while Spider-Man comes swinging out from his web. Cartoon character Lightning McQueen screeches away for another lap round the circuit and a boombox logo opens up a selection of music playable on demand.

The clothes-as-entertainment model is being launched in the UK by Zappar, a technology start-up company co-founded by Scots computer games veteran Kirk Ewing.

The company’s Zapparel range of T-shirts, which appear to come to life when images on them are viewed using a smartphone equipped with the Zappar app, will be on sale in major retailers this summer.

It is the latest use of augmented reality (AR) – technology that overlays the real world with computer- generated sounds, video and graphics.

Ewing said: “It’s all about the integration of the world around you with virtual reality. Advertising is the most obvious expression of it, especially around entertainment properties, but we wanted to create original products of our own.

“The T-shirt is ideal, because it is a really strong expression of an individual’s identity, and it’s very graphical.”

On sale in the United States since last autumn, distribution deals are also in place in continental Europe, South Africa and South America, with launches in those regions also imminent.

Fashion experts believe that Zapparel clothing could prove popular. Aileen Stewart, a lecturer in fashion marketing at Glasgow Caledonian University specialising in new product development within the industry, is convinced the public is ready to embrace clothing as an entertainment channel.

“At the moment it is very much being geared to the youth market and to kids, and as such it has to be regarded as a niche,” she says.

“But technology is now intrinsically inbuilt not just into clothing, but into the whole supply chain of clothing as well. If you can link it to a consumer’s individual wants and needs, that is always going to be a benefit in the market.”

Zappar, just ten months old, is up against some of the industry’s biggest hitters in the race to capitalise on mobile AR technology. Among them are the UK’s Autonomy, now owned by Hewlett-Packard, and fellow US giant Qualcomm, maker of chips for mobile phones.

However, they have focused their attention upon other uses for AR, which range from military and industrial applications to entertainment and education.

“At this point, there is nobody else in the consumer goods market,” Ewing says, “but it is only a matter of time.”

Zappar’s technology is based upon a system developed by University of Cambridge graduate Simon Taylor which identifies specific images and automatically launches film, animation or other content upon recognition. It runs on a computer platform designed by fellow university graduate Connell Gauld.

The two were trying to raise money to start up their own company when they met Ewing and his business partner Caspar Thykier. Ewing and Thykier, who had been looking for technology in the field of AR, eventually convinced the university pair to join them in setting up Zappar, which launched in May last year.

The company, which is registered in Scotland but employs a dozen people in London, has advanced rapidly. Ewing confidently predicts that at least one million Zappar T-shirts will be shifted in the first year alone, putting the company into profit.

He expects profits to further accelerate after Zapparel is launched in the UK.