If a picture is worth a thousand words, then an Instagram of blogger Chiara Ferragni wearing a Chanel jacket can be worth 42,000 likes. Fashion and social media, it seems, were made for each other. With models strutting down the catwalk as eyeless cameras capture everything, without really seeing anything, fashion observers hold smartphones aloft, ingesting and regurgitating every dress for an increasingly design-obsessed audience.
Even if its members never own a designer bag or brush by the gossamer threads of one designer dress, that audience can now feel closer to fashion than ever.
See also: Designer Rebecca Minkoff Uses Apps to Reveal the 'Raw' Side of Fashion Week
Model bloggers like Ferragni, who is known simply as "Chiara" on Instagram, command the attention of millions of followers (1.8 million) and Chiara feeds the gaping maw with a non-strop stream of images featuring her wearing an endless line of designer clothing, shoes, bags, bracelets and more.
That activity intensifies during the maelstrom known in NYC as Fashion Week. In unveiling after unveiling and party after party, beautiful people, stunning fashions, oddball imagery, technology and design collide.
The thread that connects fashion and fans throughout the week is, put simply, the mobile phone. It's the primary way designers, celebrities, and fashion media instantly share every moment of fashion week.

At Monday evening's Alice and Olivia show on the west side of Manhattan, technology was mostly in the hands of onlookers, as they shoved, primarily, iPhones, the occasional Samsung Galaxy S3, iPad minis and some DSLRs (in the hands of pro photogs), in the face of roughly a dozen models positioned throughout the McKittrick Hotel space.

Some, like me, came with a little extra technology, like Olloclips for capturing fisheye and wide angle views of the models, who were set in a tableau that resembled some sort of immobile fairy tale. There was even a young woman in a glass coffin, surrounded by piles of deep red apples.

I also brought along Google Glass and, though I know there have been Glass sightings at previous Fashion Weeks, I was the only one wearing a pair at this event.

I used them to capture the slightly manic, celebrity-infused scene and to grab a few precious minutes with Alice and Olivia designer Stacey Bendet.
She explained how excited she is by the collision of design and technology and noted technology's potential for job creation in America. Like many in the fashion space, she is a heavy social media user, especially Instagram, where she posts on her own.

Still, technology only goes so far in fashion. When I asked her if she uses technology to create some of her elegant and eye-popping designs, Bendet explained that, aside from pattern-making, where's there's all sorts of technology, the industry is still, in some ways, old school and designs without computers or tablets. At least, that's how she does it.
She did note, however, that she uses her computer for "boards" and "collages" and uses her iPhone to capture ideas for imagery that can end up in her designs and dresses. Bendet is also intrigued by the 3D printing work of Shapeways and said that she may, at some point, create some 3D fashion herself.
You can see the interview and get a taste of what a major fashion event looks like through the eyes of technology in the "through Glass" video above. It's pretty, dark, bright, loud and generally a little out there — like all the best fashion.