Feeling frazzled at a fashion event is a first world problem, I know, but the annual menswear trade fair in Florence, Pitti Uomo, is stressful at the best of times for those of us in the industry. There are typically more than 25,000 buyers and some 9000 journalists, photographers and bloggers in attendance and this year's blistering temperatures and the perennial shortage of taxis and decent Wi-Fi coverage didn't help.
So when I heard an Italian company had unveiled brain-sensing eyewear designed to help you relax, rejuvenate and find greater mental focus, I just had to give it a go while I was still in the country and in need of a little stress-relief.
"As today's society becomes faster and busier, there's a huge trend to take control of your mind and focus on mindfulness and serenity and we wanted to capture that using brainwave technology with our glasses," says Safilo eyewear chief executive Luisa Delgado.
Safilo creates luxury eyewear for brands including Dior, Céline, Fendi, Givenchy and Marc Jacobs, but the first products to emerge from its new SAFILOx cognitive training platform have been produced in partnership with Smith, a US company that produces eyewear for extreme sports, and Interaxon, which specialises in consumer brain-sensing technology.
"We have created beautiful glasses you can wear anywhere, then whenever you decide to do the focus training you just turn on a dedicated app that calibrates your mind waves and takes you through a series of exercises to improve your focus," Delgado says.
I arranged to meet the company's chief product design and creation officer, Vladimiro Baldin, in the lobby of my Florence hotel and he arrived with three prototypes of the Smith Lowdown Focus frames for me to try, in combination with the dedicated app on his smartphone.
One pair of sunglasses proffered by Baldin looks super sporty, with bright white frames and orange polarised lenses, but the other matte black versions with black lenses are like any sunglasses you'd wear in the city or to the beach.
Inner workings
Except, of course, that they contain tiny electronic sensors embedded in the frame and the rubber nose pads and nose bridge, which are designed to read the movement of your eyes and face muscles. There's even a gyroscope, temperature, pressure and UV sensors and – Baldin lost me here – electroencephalography technology (EEG), which is all about brain-sensing.
I donned the white pair and decided to try the app's Build Focus, which is designed to do just that – improve your ability to concentrate. A chip embedded in the glasses connects them via Bluetooth to the app on your phone.
A spoken introduction on the app told me I would undergo a guided meditation based on the sound of waves coming into shore. The more I was able to focus on the waves, the softer they would lap, but the more my mind wandered, the louder they would crash onto the sand. Birdsong would sound if I became too deeply relaxed or nodded off.
At the end of my session, my experience was rated in "focus points" based on the technology's measurement of my brain's "active", "neutral" and "focus" performance – focus being the deepest and most ideal state. The idea is that I could use the feedback to improve during any future session.
Even in a busy hotel lobby, my rhythms adjusted to the sound of the ocean and when the mediation ended with a chime, I felt refreshed, calmer. Not quite as if I'd spent a day at the seaside, but certainly a little more chilled.
The SAFILOx technology is essentially a guided meditation app that charts your performance via your glasses. While it was originally developed to help elite athletes improve their mental focus, Delgado says the possibilities are endless.
"You could use it for education before you need to sit an exam, before a board presentation or for any stressful occupations to help you to find more clarity," she says.
"The beauty and convenience is you can do it anytime and anywhere with your Safilo eyewear glasses on."
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