April Fools’ Day 2016 - The Best Fashion Jokes

Would you wear a bomber jacket with tote bags attached? Or dress your baby in BMW Drive baby boots? Are you excited about Samsung’s range of intelligent trousers? Happy April Fools’ Day - it seems that all the top brands were showing their humorous side this year - were you fooled by any? Here’s a selection of the best ones FashionUnited has spotted.

River Island has a great idea to solve the 5 pence bag charge

Have you ever hit the shops and ended up buying a bit more than you planned for? Now that there's a 5 pence charge for carrier bags, it all adds up, and River Island has come up with a solution to the shopping dilemma - a Tote in a Coat. Yes, its new bomber jackets are not just stylish, they are also practical, armed with a tote bag in each arm to carry all your shopping needs with ease.

“With the introduction of the 5 pence charge, we decided to make a jacket with in-built totes to suit everyone from the savvy shopper to the fashion-forward female,” said Naomi Dominique, River Island womenswear design director. “The jacket allows you to take your totes wherever you go and with the pocket sleeves, the bags are hidden discreetly so the pocket looks like part of the design rather than a place to store your bags for life.”

River Island head of menswear design, Adrian Arbuthnot, added: “After receiving positive feedback from customers in our flagship stores, where the idea was originally put forward. We thought the bomber was the perfect product to launch with for our #ToteInACoat as its timeless and stylish qualities make it suitable for everyday use.”

Lyst’s innovative solution to the Pom Pom boom

According to shopping data from Lyst, searches for pom poms have increased by 680 percent in the last three months, apparently fashionistas are buying up pom pom bag charms, keyrings, and fuzzy bobble hat toppers like they’re going out of style. To combat this pom pom boom, Lyst is embarking on a new agricultural breeding project rearing multi-coloured silkie chickens, which lay perfect pom poms as eggs.

In what the brand is calling a “game-changing move” for the fashion technology sector, its innovative solution combines the very latest techniques in genetics, agricultural science and poultry husbandry to breed the new multicoloured species of pom pom-laying silkies, with each fabulous fashion fowl laying 3 pom poms a day, in 8 different colours.

To ensure the pom poms are extra soft and fluffy, the brood is kept in luxurious conditions, roaming free across hundreds of acres of British farmland, hand-reared by fashion interns, who massage the hens hourly to promote pom-povulation.

“We’ve hit peak pom pom. Shoppers are desperate to get their hands on these hairy balls, and retailers are struggling to keep up with demand. What the fashion industry really needs right now is some colorful cocks and balls,” said Katy Lubin, Lyst chief chicken officer.

Samsung introduces intelligent trousers

Technology giant Samsung is entering the fashion market with its Internet of Trousers, a new line-up of IoT-enabled smarter fashion products. The intelligent trousers combine the latest in high-tech with high fashion, designed to address the pain points of everyday life, the trousers are embedded with ARTIK Smarter Fashion chip modules, which communicates with the Smarter Fabric Care app.

Key functions of the Internet of Trousers includes ‘Wi-Fly’, which will notify you if your fly remains open for more than three minutes to save you from embarrassment, and the ‘Get up! Alert’ that uses pressure sensors to detect prolonged periods of inactivity and sends the wearer notifications to ‘get up off of that thing’ at least once an hour. If the wearer remains seated for more than three hours the trousers will send mild electrical shocks to provide extra motivation.

The highlight though has to be the ‘Fridge Lock’ mode, if the tension around your waist gets too high, the embedded ARTIK chip module will send signals to your refrigerator to prevent you from overeating. The fridge door lock can then only be deactivated with consent from a designated person such as your mother or significant other.

The trousers are the first in a range, Samsung is hoping the ARTIK Smarter Fashion portfolio will also soon include ARTIK Sx for socks, to help solve the problem of lost and/or divorced socks.

BMW invents baby shoes to stop your toddler falling over

According to car manufacturer BMW you’ll never have to watch your toddler fall over again thanks to its latest invention, the xDrive Baby Boots designed to help children under the age of three hold their balance. The shoes, which come in blue and pink, uses BMW’s unique traction controls sole features adaptive rubber which can react in a tenth of a second to the slightest wobble and change of terrain.

Whether your child is exploring the carpet, ceramic tiles or varnished wood, the BMW xDrive Baby Boots with its intelligent, dynamic control, will help your child enable perfect weight distribution, fully harnessing the power of each leg for maximum safety.

Commenting on the new baby launch, BMW head of product fabrication, Joss Fülin, said: “BMW entered the all-wheel-drive segment more than three decades ago, and although this specific technology is still in its infancy, we see potential in the baby footwear category as a growing segment.

“The BMW xDrive Baby Boots provide the perfect combination of practicality and maximum walking pleasure.”

The Best April Fools’ jokes of 2016

Other brands getting in on the act included Google, launching a same-day delivery service to rival Amazon Prime, Google Express, which sends its deliveries via parachute, while Mini is launching a new car, the Mini Hipster Hatch that features an upcycled stonewash denim interior and has Instagram filtered windows.

Also ever felt like you wanted a skirt that could be manually raised or extended? Well, English Blinds is launching its first ever piece of clothing the Roman Blind Skirt, a made-to-measure tailored skirt that will give the wearer manual control on its hemline, meaning no more folding skirts at the waistband or being unable to participate in outdoor activities during the summer.

Taking inspiration from its range of Roman Blinds, the skirt will also come in a wide range of colours as well as a 5-year guarantee and a child safety device on in the inner hem. The custom order even allows the customer to select right hand or left hand controls to raise the hemline.

Happy April Fools’ Day!

Images: River Island, Lyst, Samsung, BMW, English Blinds