London fashion show belle: iPod

By Chris Stevens on 13 July 2005, 11:58am

The iPod Mini turns at the end of the catwalk, flashes us a knowing smile, whirls its Clickwheel erotically and prances off into the dressing rooms. Here, iPods preen themselves, admiring each other's Dunhill leather cases and Belkin speakers, while others hum iTunes songs in the loo.

"Look at my delicious Bose speakers", one iPod drawls from a badly lipsticked USB port. "Check out my Logitech wireless headphones", says a blue iPod Mini while she adjusts the wig on an iPod Photo with a Griffin Airclick add-on.

The world of iPod accessories is a wild one, so Crave expected to enjoy Apple's iPod fashion show in London's Sketch club. We gazed with wide eyes as iPods flaunted this season's hottest accessories.

The iPod clothes on offer include flamboyant speaker cradles to turn your iPod into a small ghetto-blaster, wireless headphones, designer cases and wireless connectors. Being the best-selling MP3 player on the planet comes with rewards, the main one being that every tech company in the universe wants you dressed in its outfits. We saw new case offerings from iSkin, headphones from Sennheiser, a tentacle-like Flexdock from Ten Technology and military-grade iPod armour from Matias.

By far the best looking accessory for iPods at the moment is the JBL On Stage speaker dock (pictured). While none of the docks we listened to were especially confident at the bass end of things, the JBL at least looked spectacular. It's a UFO that your iPod interfaces with like an alien returned to the mothership. The best accessories seem to be the ones that adopt Apple's look and feel, and JBL have realised this. The On Stage looks like it could have been created by those talented Cupertino design pixies themselves.

We'll be dressing our iPods in as much of this kit as we can to let you know how it performs. Expect full reviews soon. -CS