Glass’s fashion creds boosted by 12-page spread in Vogue

If Google is to succeed in making Glass a mass-market product, it knows that it has to much more than appeal to geeks. The company also has to make it at least acceptable, and ideally cool, for ordinary consumers to be seen to be wearing the device. And when it comes to doing that, you can’t get much better than Glass being featured in a 12-page spread in the fashion bible Vogue … 

The New York Times alerted us to it:

Vogue has dedicated 12 pages in its September issue to a futuristic spread featuring models wearing Glass, sleek hair and minimalist designs, like an oversize amethyst Stella McCartney coat, in a rusted steel house in Texas resembling an alien spaceship.

“For me, the trend of the season was color and the attitude was the future,” said Tonne Goodman, Vogue’s fashion director, who oversaw the feature. She said Glass lent “a fantastic dimension to it.”

Google has previously put a lot of effort into attempting to make Glass fashionable. The company partnered with designer Diane von Furstenberg to use Glass to document the creation of a fashion show, resulting in Glass making it onto the runway at New York Fashion Week. Google is working on integrating Glass technology into traditional sunglasses, allowing for the possibility of designer editions, and has held talks with a number of designers.

The Vogue spread, however, was a happy accident.

Ms. von Furstenberg said she decided to include Glass in her show after running into [Google co-founder Sergey] Brin, a friend, in Sun Valley, Idaho. He was “wearing these odd glasses,” she said, and when she tried them on, “I was floored.”

Accessories, Ms. von Furstenberg said, “tell someone that extra bit about you, and I think to wear Glass is to show that you are engaged, you are current, you are open to new things.”