in england for high street businesses hit by the covid pandemic. violence against anti—coup protests in myanmar — reports say police have shot dead at least nine people. police in hong kong have charged a group of 47 activists with conspiracy to commit subversion under a new security law. coronation street actor johnny briggs — who played mike baldwin in the itv soap — has died at the age of 85. now on bbc news. it's time for click. this week — it's a fashion special in which we find that pixels are the new black. leather is reinvented,

no cows required. and finishing the look, the big spectacle in al beauty. hey, welcome to click! this week, we're both trying to look our best because it's been london fashion week which, as you may expect, was a bit different this year and which probably explains why lara is currently wearing cardboard. oh, sorry! i'll take these off. i was looking at a collection in virtual reality! put them back on and tell us what it's like. well, it's certainly immersive, of course. this is designer jenn lee's show. it was shot in live action so that viewers can experience it in a vr headset or google cardboard. it's a great 360 view around, although i feel like i'm at a circus, but i guess that's just high fashion for you!

and what's really struck me is that this goes so much further than just putting clothes online. four years ago, a mysterious model stirred up the fashion industry. her name was shudu and nobody knew where she came from. turns out shudu wasn't real — she came from the imagination of fashion photographer cameron james wilson and she became an internet sensation. she even appeared in a digital—only swarovski dress at the 2019 baftas in london with her movements provided by a real model in canada. such was shudu's success that wilson decided to create a model agency called the diigitals and design six more models to create a more diverse line—up, including galaxia, a much—needed alien model. in all seriousness, wilson

thinks that his approach can tackle one of the biggest issues that the fashion industry faces — sustainability. in the next 3—5 years, many of the brands that we know today are going to be using sd in their pipelines in some way, shape or form, whether that's designing the clothes or creating campaigns with digital models, so as you can imagine, that means that digital models are going to become more and more in demand as it makes much more sense to put your sd clothes on sd models. it allows them to visualise and even sell clothes that haven't even been made yet, so they can do things like a pre—order on collections and that way, they have not wasted any materials in making those garments. one of the biggest sources of waste within the fashion industry is returns and having too much stock. that all goes to waste or it's burned. doing anything that can help stop that and reduce that is extremely important.

and designer collective the fabricant are trying to do exactly that, creating sd garments from scratch with only digital models in mind. and notjust supermodels like these, but us, too — our avatars. we create clothes that are always digital and never, ever physical so with that, we try to change the landscape of what fashion will look like for the 21st century. and we're trying to see how we can reshape the way we wear, produce and create clothes, and to see if we can create a more sustainable way. fabricant�*s founder amber slooten, became concerned about the environmental impact of fast fashion when she was a student at the amsterdam fashion institute. so she decided to put down her needle and thread, and pick up a computer and mouse and start creating virtual garments for some of the world's biggest fashion brands. this one was sold for almost $10,000 — a custom frock which has not and never

will exist in the reals. i think maybe 50 peoples are walking their day in real life but, like, millions of millions of people are wearing that dress online. and then, my question always is, like, what is the difference, right? and, like, even in this culture still, the only sort of proof we have of our identity is our pictures. cameronjames has been dressing some of his sd models using fabrica nt�*s free collection. we downloaded some of their free clothing — which they call �*ffrops�* — from their website and put them on one of our models called boyce. he looked absolutely amazing in them, and it highlighted the way that the sd fashion industry can work. we can collaborate with each other across the world and forfree. you know, there's no waste involved. there's certainly a lot of motivation to cut waste, both in materials and in transport.

the european union has promised to save 55% of their c02 footprint. from where is that coming from and how do we save that? look around you — all of the industries are digitised. change takes time, so it will take time. the good thing with digital fashion is that it's utterly scalable and it's very fast so, like, once you hit a critical mass, it can happen really, really quickly. but what started as an attempt to make fashion more environmentally friendly may lead to something equally world—changing. a new cult is rising. i'm a 19—year—old musician, change seeker, taco truck expert and robot. from virtual models to virtual social media stars, all wearing virtual clothing. is this what we'll all be spending our money on soon? those models are incredible,

but we've been doing some modelling of our own. drumroll. cheering and applause. yeah, so that was actually a digital outfit built for me especially by a company called dressx. at the moment, their digital clothing can only be shown on still images, but what did you think? did i cut the mustard? 0h, brilliant! and i loved the branding! spencer isn't the only one who's been virtually dressing up, though. the fashion industry predicts that digital garments will become big business over the next two decades. the idea of buying virtual goods has long existed in gaming, where in—game purchases have played their part in creating a digital—only goods market. but these new online shops are full of brands that are hoping to unite the digital and the real world. a bit like the effects on video chat, one day we might be wearing virtual designer outfits as well.

definitely, we understand that dressx is a product literally for everyone who has any kind of a digital identity online. right now, the process is pretty straightforward and actually replicates our shopping habits. 0n the product page, you upload your photo and then you check out. you will receive your result next day and it is ready to be shared. so, of course, i had a go too, but i was pretty underwhelmed by the result. as much as i may have always dreamt of a click dress, the fit wasn't great and you can see my sleeves — although if i provided an original picture in swimwear, that would have overcome that issue. this is early days,

but companies are working on being able to dress customers live in video, and it's then that our real wardrobes may have some competition. hello and welcome to the week in tech. it was the week facebook and australia became friends again after the company announced it would restore news content to users in the country. australia has made amendments to a new law that requires social media firms to pay news publishers for content. google�*s sister firm sidewalk lab shelved a smart city project to track mobility patterns in the us city of portland. it follows the scrapping of a similar project to build a digital city in toronto, canada. and boston dynamics have condemned plans by an art collective to allow people to control a version of its robot dog spot online, fitted with a paintball gun. one of the few trade shows with actual in—person guests since the start of the pandemic has taken place in china. more than 20,000 people and 200 companies attended mobile world congress shanghai, which included the release of huawei's foldable mate x2.

nasa has been publishing what it called "a firehose of data" sent back from the perseverance rover on mars. the space agency has released over a700 images, videos and audio files from the red planet, with many more to come. and finally, if all your lockdown needed was a robot sort of cat that talks and breaks wind, then panasonic are here for you. nicobo is an interactive companion robot that can wink, wag its tail and respond to being patted and hugged. breaks wind. it was the cat! spencer, what on earth are you up to now? don't mind me, i'm just trying out a new fashion collection in the form of an instagram filter. bit weird, innit? but what's happening?

i can't see anything that looks like a new outfit. yeah, this is more art than fashion, if i'm honest. the images that you see on my face right now have been generated by machine learning. chinese luxury label mithridate created real—life clothing first, which has been showcased in an interactive digital world. woman: last night, i dreamt of machine thinking. - but the fashion collection was also fed into an a! model by artists in la, and it's machine learning that created the abstract patterns and artwork displayed online and on instagram. 0ur input is hundreds and hundreds of images of textures, close—ups of accessories, buttons, full looks, and also the output is what basically the machine has made sense of all of these images.

but not every ai creation made the cut. sometimes, it did spit out things that we were like this looks like a little weird or a little like a horror movie, but there is this other side of capturing the essence and kind of the soul of the garments, beyond their utility and their literal shape. the online experience mixes video clips and draggable, clickable spaces, while the instagram filters can be found through hidden qr codes. so we have the ar filter, where you are wearing the machine learning collection on your face. and then we have this xr filter, which actually puts you into the protagonist's dark room, and what's really cool about this one is if you move it all around, then you see that there's imagery from the darkroom surrounding you in all directions. because london fashion week is purely in a digitalform, i think we are seeing that what we can do — and what people are willing to experience — is completely different and unprecedented. we can remove the front row

altogether and we can take advantage of the fact that people are at home to experience this, and their mindset is very much different than sitting front row vip, and it is more accessible to many different audiences, notjust the front row audience. experiments like this are changing how we experience fashion — although some things are still a bit too experimentalfor me. that was a bit weird! so you won't be joining me in the red room anytime soon, then? um, i don't think so. and of course, for now, most of us are still buying real clothes to wear in the real world but that can have a real impact on the environment. leather, it's been around for some s,000 years and fashion brands choose it for its luxurious and long—lasting qualities.

but turning those flashy, furry animal hides into products with a desirable finish requires intensive water and chemical treatment, and they pollute the environment. so finding alternatives that reduce the need for these toxic after—care processes could prove a game—changer. one answer might lie in fungi. no cows or fields required. that's good news for vegans. this material isn't leather but its makers bolt threads say that it's just as durable and breathable. this is a another different material from california's mycoworks — it certainly has the right sheen and movement but a quick sniff does give the game away. this does have a bit of a distinctive odour of its own. we received a range of responses, from absolutely like leather, cannot tell the difference, to people who can sense

that it is a natural material but its own unique natural material with its own qualities. it's not actually the mushrooms themselves that go into these fungi materials, it is mycelium, the fine threads that usually grow underground. processing mycelium into a material doesn'tjust require less water and fewer chemicals than leather, the source itself brings unique environmental benefits too. you're actually taking carbon from the atmosphere. it's leveraging mycelium's natural ability to turn plant biomass into its own biomass. these fungi materials also require less land as mycelium can be grown vertically. this is actually the beginnings of bolt threads mylo being grown. and fashion leaders have taken note with sport's brands adidas and lululemon, and luxury label, stella mccartney, all partnering up with bolt threads.

i've seen lots of different leather alternatives out there, it's a whole new game. we're entering into a new phase of this where these are real options and proper alternatives we can use as an industry. the higher price point of a luxury brand sometimes makes it easier to actually incorporate these brand—new innovative materials that maybe haven't had a drop in price yet because they are still so precious and new to the market. but if mycelium material still falls short of the real deal, well how about a lab grown option that matches leather cell for cell? yes, this gleaming white material is a cowhide that's

been grown in the lab. it looks unusual because only the collagen and protein that make up a cow's skin has been grown. now as you see of course there are no hairs or excess fat or meat stuck to this hide. we only grow what is needed for finished leather. the company says the steps needed are much simpler to turn lab—grown hides into products, and 90% less chemicals are used too. it's choosing its partners carefully. but of course, third parties could still choose to add pollutive chemical coatings — an issue the whole industry is trying to address. five years on from vitrolabs�* first attempts, they have now streamlined the system to minimise water use and waste. in here we have cells from calves, ostriches and even crocodiles. and from a single vial, we can make hundreds of millions of square feet of leather. the cells are fed nutrients to help multiply and placed on a thin criss—cross scaffold. this is made of organic recycled materials and remains hidden inside the end product. they are incubated in boxes

and can grow the hides of 42 cows at once, enough to make several hundred handbags. after a few weeks, we remove the box and inside there is a cowhide grown from our cells. with its identical dna, it should hit notes that leather replacements miss. the scent that people associate with leather. it looks and feels like leather because, well, it is leather. but in these early stages, lab—grown leather does still have its limitations. traditional hides range from half a millimetre to well over a millimetre thick, and these hides come in atjust .6.

what we're looking to do in terms of increasing our thickness because we want to target different industries. when you look at a car seat, you need a thicker hide, and sportswear and athletics industries, those require different types of hides. the company's validating its durability tests with partners and its sustainability tests with harvard university, but it aims to hit the luxury end of the market within two years. change won't happen overnight though. in my opinion, we're still probably decades away from any of these materials being all that we use. it takes time to scale things but we do have solutions that we need to be scaling right now. things like organic cotton, regenerative agriculture and recycling. so while leather certainly isn't the biggest problem the fashion industry has, it could be one that has a solution, and who knows, in our quest to replicate it, we may even find something that

some will believe to be better. right, now for some fashion that hasn't been grown in the labs. i've managed to get my hands on a pair on the latest smart glasses. you might have seen these things before. they have got micro speakers near the earfor music and phone calls and microphones built in too. they are not new by any means but i have to say they're just getting a bit more fashion. i'm not sure these are quite me though, what do you think? i really like the first pair on you but smart accessories are definitely getting slicker. i've been testing a smart ring to see how it compares to a wrist—worn device. the battery life is great, it is really comfortable for sleeping in but i have been missing the ability to just look down and see the display on my wrist. 0k.

well, we are not the only ones who have been playing around the smart accessories. jen copestake has been checking out the beauty world's very latest tech specs. colourful flowers are starting to blossom, inspiring ourfashion and make—up choices for a new season. experimenting with spring colours and make—up is challenging at the moment with many beauty store counters closed, but new apps are providing perfect make—up matches using ai and glasses you can use at home or even in the park. these are zozo glass by japanese online fashion retailer, zozo. they're designed with these different colour swatches around your eyes and when using them with the smartphone app, you can find the perfect foundation colour for your skin tone without leaving your home. the first step is using your

smartphone's camera to look at all of the colours on the frame. as you look around, the app sees how each of the colours are affected by the environment. this environmental lighting is calculated and then removed from the image, revealing the true colour of your skin, hair and eyes. your face is shown split into different zones with the best foundation shades for each section. it also detects percentages of haemoglobin and melanin in your skin and your personal colour for clothing that will suit your skin tone. we will also be enabling ar make—up but colour corrected ar make—up, so that you put the glasses on for about three seconds and then you can do make—up virtually but that colour correction really shows what you would really look like wearing that make—up because it is corrected. the company has already released remote shopping products like the zozo mat which measures your feet and the zozo suit which measures your body. the new platform will launch injapan in march and the glasses will be shipped to customers for free. another beauty app that has been inspired by the lockdown and will help you shop

from home is chanel�*s lipscanner. we tried it outside on different flowers. you pick the exact area of colour you like and lipscanner recommends the closest shade of product to match. as well as the colour, you can see if it looks better as a gloss or a matte. if you decide you don't like the colour selected, you can flick through different ones and they all appear on your lips. chanel�*s app takes into account your skin tone and lip shape when making recommendations. the perfect shade is then sent to your home. and it really is amazing how close the colour match is to what i did on my video. this is shade a7, daring red, and it's almost exactly the same. i'm really impressed because the way it's applied in the app is much better than the way i have applied it on my own lips. it is incredible. so while beauty counters remain under wraps around the world, innovations making it easier to find make—up from home will become more advanced. that was jen finishing off what i think has been an incredibly fashionable show. what do you reckon?

just call us the click catwalk. you can keep up with the team throughout the week on social media, find us on youtube, instagram, facebook and twitter @bbcclick. thank you for watching and we will see you soon. goodbye. hello, it is turning into a fine, sunny sunday for most of us. a lot of dry weather, certainly. we had some fog around first thing and some of that is struggling to clear, much of it shifting but with high pressure in charge it is going to remain predominantly dry

through the rest of the day. so we will keep some areas of cloud, mist and murk for some eastern and southern coastal counties of england, the odd patch of mistiness elsewhere but for the majority it's fine with some spells of sunshine. a bit more cloud into western scotland, that could givejust the odd spot of rain in a few places. the winds will be light for most but a little breezier than it was yesterday across the southern counties of england and as far as the temperatures go, in the sunniest spots we are looking a highs of between ten and is degrees but bear in mind it will be a little cooler than that if you get stuck in mist and murk all day long. through this evening and tonight it remains dry with long, clear spells but an area of cloud,

mist and fog is going to roll this way in towards the southern half of england, a good part of wales as well, one or two fog patches elsewhere into scotland and northern ireland. the lowest temperatures will be where we have the clearest of the skies, getting down to freezing or a touch below. not quite as cold as we look towards the south—east of england, that's because here we'll have more cloud, quite a grey and murky start to tomorrow, actually, across many parts of england, parts of wales as well. some of that mist and fog could linger through parts of yorkshire and at the same time we will see some cloud and fog pushing in from the north sea towards eastern coasts of scotland and north—east england. where we see some sunshine tomorrow, temperatures again up to ten, maybe 11 degrees but much cooler than that if it stays grey and murky where you are. we look ahead to tuesday, very similar weather, some cloud, mist and murk, especially for eastern coastal counties. elsewhere it should tend to lift and break in most places but if anything, temperatures are heading downjust a touch by this stage. now, late on tuesday we'll see a few showers approaching the south—west, a little weather feature that's going to be moving its way through during wednesday, the odd hefty downpour with that, but high pressure builds back for the end of the week.

this high, though, is building from the north. it's going to bring some cooler air with it so temperatures if anything will be dipping as we head towards the end of the week. still a lot of dry weather, some spells of sunshine, but the odd wintry shower possible in the far north—east.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines. plans for a £5 billion grant scheme in england to support high street businesses hard hit by covid—i9, as the chancellor says he'll continue to protect people through the pandemic. twice—weekly rapid tests for coronavirus to be offered to families in england when children return to school. police in myanmar are reported to have shot dead nine people who were protesting against the military coup there. the coronation street actorjohnny briggs, who played mike baldwin in the itv soap, has died at the age of 85. and the duke and duchess of cambridge have taken part in a video call to encourage people to take the covid—i9 vaccination.