Over the course of the night Gigi has convinced you to offload every one of the vintage roseTokens you won in a cryptoestate sale, a temporary hold has been placed on your account and a privately owned, city-contracted driverless vehicle has been dispatched to your coordinates (at your expense) because your eye tracking speed has fallen below a rate determined by the anticipated preferences of other bar patrons as collectively agreed to in the TOS. Oh—and you use an ugly interface— it’s not just like that in the future, you picked that.
This editorial plays with technologies that are poised to reshape fashion and service industries in the next few years, particularly augmented reality and blockchain. It follows the night of a customer in a near-future drag bar, enraptured by cabaret performer Gigi in shots inspired by Toulouse Lautrec’s lurid paintings of Parisian nightlife and the kinky 80s lithographs of Pater Sato. Gigi Loving wears Bun Stout headpiece, boots and augmented reality jacket. Photography by Brittany Sowacke. Assisted by Tim Bell.