conic Melbourne Couture designer, Jason Grech and IBM are turning fashion on its head launching an Australian-first couture collection developed using technology to understand the latest and next season’s runway trends. The Cognitive Couture, made up of 12 couture dresses, debuted last night at Melbourne Spring Fashion Week (MSFW).

JASONGRECH Cognitive Couture is a combination of inspiration and a unique design process. IBM provides analysis into trend, audience and fashion possibilities that can be applied to design and decision making. Working with IBM’s cognitive technology, known as Watson, Jason has been empowered to take an entirely new creative approach to his designs – to use insights that take a data driven approach to design and decision making.

JASONGRECH collaborated with IBM to produce The Cognitive Couture collection. With the ability to analyse ten years of runway fashion images and real time social buzz, Watson’s visual recognition technology not only analysed but predicted trends in colour. “Working with IBM to create the collection allowed us to work with a colour palette we would not have considered before. This is the first time I have worked with pastels for my collection”

Jason Grech’s love of architecture permeates his work – “Architecture is amazing. I look at the lines, the curves, the corners, the texture, every detail.” Using an IBM application infused with Watson cognitive technology, Jason and his team created his couture collection by matching architectural images with fashion images, providing the inspiration for new designs.

Using a combination of IBM analytics and cognitive technologies, designers can gain new insights and inspiration with access to 100,000s of social media images in an instant. IBM helped designer, Jason Grech and his team to explore and evaluate trends during the creative process, and discover new ways to work with fabrics, colour stories and textures they have not even thought about. “Watson gave us a direction, helped evaluate risk and maintain confidence in the collection”

A cognitive system is able to understand structured data and unstructured data, such as images, and can reason, learn and interact with people. For Jason Grech, IBM has used a mix of Watson APIs, including Watson Visual Recognition, and cognitive tools from IBM Research to provide insights into fashion trends, consumers and design possibilities.  Jason Grech’s collection at Melbourne Spring Fashion Week is the first time in Australia that artificial intelligence has been used in combination with creative thinking and design process.  For more information visithttp://www.ibm.com/cognitive/au-en/fashion/