Back-to-School High-Tech Style

Aug. 24 -- This year’s fall shopping season for the back-to-school crowd is tapping into the world of high-tech.

Just a few years ago, a choice Trapper Keeper binder was synonymous with trendiness. Now, paper organizers and lunchbox accessories are becoming secondary to colorful beepers, handheld computers and laptops, and super-small MP3 players. Even clothing is being fashioned to accommodate technology in its very design.

“It’s fantasy and fun,” said Colleen McCarthy, fashion editor for FashionPlanet.com in New York. “A lot of people grew up with the Jetsons, and Get Smart. What seemed to be a dream 10 to 15 years ago is now available.”

Biting Into the Apple

McCarthy says that though people have imagined wearing electronics for years, the new wave of millennium styling really started to take hold not too long after Apple Corp. released its fruity iMac line.

“Apple had a lot to do with these new trends,” she said. “Before iMacs, computers were black, gray [Apple] made electronics a little more fashionable. Plus, people are busy. They’re on the go, and they want to have gadgets, and they want them to look good.”

So now people are sporting their gadgets that are being designed seemingly as much for show as for purpose.

“Everyone wants to outdo the next guy,” said Darian Mencinsky, a sales associate at the Wiz in New York. “On sunny days, you’ll see students around here, all decked out with their tech gear.”

Palm Pilots, MP3 and MiniDisc players, and iMac and iBooks are flying off the shelves, said Mencinsky, who noted that the Palm Vx appeared to be the most popular model for students because of its slim, metal casing, 8 megabytes of memory, and reasonable price of around $400.

Portable, wearable music is another in-thing, and size apparently counts—the smaller the better. One popular item about as big as a bar of soap is the Sony 64 megabyte MP3 player. Another hot item on the market, according to Mencinsky, is Sony’s coaster-sized MiniDisc player that allows users to download music from their computers and record them onto a MiniDisc using a wire that plugs directly into a USB port.