will.i.am Had a Tiny Robot Sewn Into His Met Gala Tux
Photo: Getty Images
While most of the guests at Monday night’s Met Gala interpreted this year’s theme of Manus x Machina to mean metallic! shiny!, will.i.am went with a more literal approach.
The Black Eyed Peas leader and tech lover showed up on the multicolored carpet wearing a black tux with white floral embroidery down the sleeves, and and a black bowler with a visor attached, lending him the look of a futuristic beekeeper.
According to Wired, Mr. i.am’s outfit was equipped with his latest attempt at infiltrating the wearable tech market: AneedA, a “device-agnostic virtual assistant” that can be embedded into any device, giving its user news updates and useful intel such as flight information, the ability to set and cancel appointments, and an unlimited music-streaming service. In the case of the Met Gala, it was sewn into will.i.am’s shawl collar. (AneedA will be released in the U.K. on May 11; a U.S. release date has not yet been announced.)
Of his boss’s relatively low-key (for him!) getup, will.i.am’s creative director Adam Derry said, “You might expect will to hover in and be lowered out of some sort of device, glowing. But we wanted to take a quieter, classic approach.” If wearable artificial intelligence and a plastic face shield are now considered classics, then mission accomplished!
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