Smart Jacket Connects Wearer With Special Deals

By Chuck Martin
Posted on
October 30, 2016


While Internet-connected things have ranged from phones and watches to thermostats and appliances, connections are now expanding to clothing.

Here comes the smart jacket.

The limited edition ‘BRIGHT BMBR’ smart jacket is being introduced by New York fashion brand Rochambeau and comes with an NFC chip and personalized QR code inside a hidden zipper pocket on one of the sleeves.

The jacket owner can use their smartphone to connect with those smart tags and access certain experiences, including various gifts around town that come with the jacket.

Earlier this year, packaging and labeling giant Avery Dennison inked a deal with Evrythng, the IoT platform company backed by Samsung and Cisco, to add special tagging on products that consumers can interact with via smartphone, as I wrote about here at the time (10 Billion Clothing, Footwear Products Joining The Internet Of Things).

That essentially means that products are being born digital right at the manufacturing process.

The product tagging could be by serialized QR codes, RFID chips or NFC tag, depending on the product type, Andy Hobsbawm, co-founder and chief marketing officer of Evrythng, told me at the time.

The new Fall/Winter jacket is one those new connected products.

Each of the individually numbered jackets has a custom chip that, once linked via smartphone, provides curated experiences around town.

For example, each garment offers a VIP pass to an exclusive event selected by Rochambeau’s founders, such as a tasting menu for two at an exclusive restaurant, a personal tour at New Release gallery or a velvet rope entry to the most exclusive nightclubs, no matter how long the line is.

The jacket also comes with personalized gifts that can be collected by smartphone scanning the garment when within 500 yards of any of the three retail outlets of The New Stand, the experiential retail store where the jackets will be sold.

It also unlocks other unique content, including a signed, numbered piece of artwork.

A bonus is at the end of the season, each smart jacket turns into a New York Fashion Week ticket to Rochambeau’s 2017 runway show.

The connected jacket is an attempt to learn more about how physical stores can be integrated with digital media services, according to Evrythng’s Hobsbawm, who told me the jacket will be priced at about $630.