Title	SKARV - A WEARABLE YOU ACTUALLY WANT TO WEAR
Brand	SKARV-FASHION GBR
Product/Service	SKARV - A WEARABLE YOU ACTUALLY WANT TO WEAR
Category	A01. Interface & Navigation (UI)
Entrant	DENKWERK Cologne, GERMANY
Idea Creation	DENKWERK Cologne, GERMANY

Name	Company	Position
Ms Alina Schlaier	denkwerk GmbH	Creative Director

The Campaign

Whether a pair of glasses or a watch – it’s clear that everything is becoming more digitized, as is so impressively demonstrated by these examples from the most successful company in the world. However, these also show what a difficult position wearables are in. Perhaps it is because “digital” today is often equated and associated with a “screen.” Technological possibilities dominate considerations – and not what people would accept or actually wear. This conflict area and its range of possibilities is what we wanted to explore. We wanted to introduce a new concept and develop a wearable that a person not only can wear, but wants to wear. Solution: SKARV is a scarf that connects people who are emotionally close but physically far away. SKARV transmits individual “sensations” via the app to the scarf wearer –these are felt through the embedded vibrating motors.

Creative Execution

To meet our requirement, we didn’t start out with a technology. Instead, we began with an article of clothing and the question of how we could add a “social” or communicative element. We chose a scarf. It’s an exciting accessory, because in addition to its function, it also has emotional and intimate facets – it protects one of the most vulnerable body parts. From there, we just started creating! In one room, fashion designers and developers designed, tested, learned, improved … The finalization and feasibility tests for the prototype were performed at the same location that Adidas and Gucci test their innovations – at the TextielLab in Tilburg, Holland. The (loop) scarf is embedded with 12 extremely flat vibrating motors, which can be intuitively and individually-controlled via the App. The vibration pattern on the screen – duration, order and intensity – is transmitted as a unique “sensation”. The scarf itself is 3-D knitted with eco-friendly yarn. The battery is charged via Micro-USB and communication occurs over Bluetooth on a smart phone. SKARV is genuinely innovative – its technological uniqueness has been confirmed by the patent office. The system is beyond the prototype stage and we are currently in negotiations with labels for its production. SKARV is truly new. Everything is ready to be scaled – but negotiations are still ongoing (and in many respects have nothing to do with the product itself). What makes us very confident – and what ultimately led to SKARV, were the qualitative test results: whoever tries it on and experiences it, does not want to give it back.