For the winter Ermenegildo Zegna Fall/Winter 2014 campaign in Harrods we were asked to create an interactive shoe display in conjunction with Timeslice. The display would showcase their premium “Double Monk” brogue shoe and would respond to user input, allowing shoppers to explore the shoe virtually while being presented with information about its construction. This was the first time a menswear label had taken over all of Harrods front windows.

 

The purpose of this project was to attract the attention of Brompton Road passers by enough so that they would take a moment to interact with the "Double Monk" shoe. The display incorporated the shoe into a space environment complete with floating particle effects and moving galaxies in the background. Displayed alongside was a film created by astrophysicists Fiorella Terenzi and Neil deGrasse Tyson, with an ambient noise soundtrack.

 

By leaning left, right or forwards shoppers could manipulate the shoe to spin left, right or up respectively. Text would then appear on-screen when the shoe had reached a set position. Leaning was detected using the new Microsoft Kinect 2.0. When a person returned to the centre the shoe would do the same. It would also check whether a player was present at regular intervals. When no player was detected it would return to a default state where it would spin constantly at slow speed. This was important for the client as, until this project, the Kinect 2.0 had not been used in a public retail environment in the UK. The Kinect 2.0 SDK was still in public preview at the time, highlighting the immaturity of the technology.

 

This is how we envision the future of shopping as we know it!

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