What's Different About Her Latest Music Video?

Fashion and art have partnered seamlessly for a long time, and technology is making that partnership even easier. The latest development comes in the form of shoppable music videos. A company called SSENSE seeks to bring consumers the future of online shopping.

SSENSE and a London-based magazine called System have joined hands in order to create music videos with an interactive shopping feature. Their first project will be Sky Ferreira's latest music video, released Wednesday, April 16. From the press release:

Today, more than ever before, fashion informs music, music informs fashion, and technology informs everything. Our exciting partnership with SSENSE allows us to bring together these three worlds and share them quickly and nimbly with a global community. In doing so, we hope to reignite the music video as the cultural catalyst for our times.

This sounds a lot easier (and more fun) than frantically Googling "Sky Ferreira's crop top from music video" in desperate hope that it will yield promising results. And while I'm not convinced the platform will create the most enjoyable music video watching experience, that isn't really the point. Online browsing can be really overwhelming because there are so many options, but finding looks you like in a music video and immediately getting product information may make for more informed purchasing decisions.

Execution will be key here. SSENSE tried out the shoppable music video back in 2012 with Iggy Azalea's "I Think She's Ready," and, according to Styleite, the experience was a little bit clunky.

You can still click the pesky “Shop This Look” pop-ups, which make the music instantly cut out. Then a window with the look and icons for each item appear, listing the brand names. The relentless “Shop This Look” buttons make you feel like you’re contending with commercials, and the fact that we went from musicians being fashion muses to digital mannequins is both creepy and very convenient.

Hopefully the 2014 iteration of the project will be a little bit smoother, but either way this is a smart idea that could lead to next level online shopping experiences popping up all over the place. The future is so here.