Louis Vuitton Showcased Prototype Handbags With Flexible Displays

10/05/2019

Smartphone vendors have just introduced their flexible display screens gadgets, and the fashion industry follows.

After Samsung with its Galaxy Fold among other companies, the France fashion house and luxury retail company Louis Vuitton has introduced a set of handbags that have built-in flexible AMOLED touchscreen displays with 1,920 x 1,440 resolution.

Initially showcased as prototypes, there were two handbags shown off during LV's Cruise 2020 runway show in New York City: One with a single screen and another with two screens, in which both are capable of displaying videos played from a internet browser.

Louis Vuitton says these are "the basis for reconsidering the digital Canvas of the Future," adding that it is "always in search of the fusion of savoir-faire and innovation."

The flexible display screens are made in collaboration between Louis Vuitton and Royole, the Chinese manufacturer behind FlexPai - one of the world’s first foldable smartphone with an AMOLED display..

On the runway at Cruise 2020, Louis Vuitton showed that the screens can be made to show a full array of colorful visualizations.

The fashion company said that the idea of putting screens inside its handbags, is for them to become the extension of wearer's smartphone. "The idea is to think of the handbag as an extension of the smartphone," said a spokesperson for Louis Vuitton.

While the Louis Vuitton unveiled a touch of its high-tech prototype handbags, Royole has previously teased its own handbag at CES 2019.

In 2018, Royole had also showcased the company's flexible technology at Paris Fashion Week: a world first for high definition wearable displays. At that time, the Chinese company showcased a Flexible Shirt and Flexible Top Hat.

While not new at this time, flexible display is an electronic visual display which is flexible in nature; as opposed to the more traditional flat screen displays.

The very first concepts of flexible screens came in the form of "flexible electronic paper", or also called "e-paper", first put forth by Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Company).

It was in 1974 that Nicholas K. Sheridon, a PARC employee, made a major breakthrough in flexible display technology, and produced the first flexible e-paper display. He called it "Gyricon", and it was designed to mimic the properties of paper, but with the ability to display dynamic digital images.

It was Sheridon who first envisioned the advent of paperless offices and sought commercial applications for Gyricon.

When time past and further development advanced the technology, more companies are trying to join.

It was in the late 2000 that the research and development of flexible displays started using OLED displays, with the main intention to implementing the technology into mobile devices and consumer television displays.

Then it was Nokia that was the first to conceptualized the application of flexible OLED displays in mobile phone with the Nokia Morph concept mobile phone. Sony then followed when it partnered with RIKEN (the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research) to bring this technology to its TVs and smartphones.

After that, they were followed by Samsung, HP, Huawei and others.