The Dressing Room Machine (Ver II)

The Dressing Room Machine (Ver. II)

12 year old Chris Harvey was loving the dressing room machine that his father had created for him.  In recent years, the machine had been made into a working prototype which won first prize at a local trade show, and has since made media coverage.  The father was paid a considerable sum for his invention, many hundreds of thousands of pounds sterling.  With the extra money, The father decided to expand on his inventions, including upgrading the current technology that the dressing room machine had.

Chris Harvey was running up to the front door of the house where he and his father lived, after making the two mile walk home from his school on a wet and rainy Wednesday afternoon.  He was wearing black school trousers, black shoes, and a brown coat to protect himself from the rain.  Chris used his house key to let himself in, wiped his feet on the doormat, and closed the front door to keep the rain outside.  He took off his coat, revealing a red embossed school sweater and white polo-neck shirt.  He also took off his shoes, showing that he wore black socks.  As Chris was about to run up the stairs to get changed into casual clothes however, his father came around the corner to greet him.

"Hello Chris."

"Hi father."

"How was school today?"

"I loved it.  Despite The Great British Weather."

"I take it you had a sports lesson then?"

"Yes I did.  Indoors, thankfully."

Chris yawned.

"And I'm completely knackered from it as well.  I should go and get changed out of my uniform."

"Yes, please do.  And you should see the updates that I've made to your dressing room machine since yesterday."

"You've been working hard on updating the technology?"

"Very hard.  Try it out and then come down to tell me what you make of it."

"Certainly."

Chris headed straight upstairs to his bedroom, and proceeded directly into his special 'dressing room machine'.  He opened the double doors, walked inside, and the former closed behind him.  With the updates that Chris's father had made to the technology, it now had the ability to store set outfits.  The dressing seat had been removed, but the space was much taller, so that Chris could stand up straight in it.  He walked into the marked and highlighted circle in the middle of the room, and a touch screen panel came up in front of him.  The screen displayed various options for Chris to choose from.  As the room set itself up, a voice was heard.

"Good afternoon Chris."  It spoke.  "Please choose your desired attire."

Because Chris hadn't set any complete outfits to wear, the command marked [Outfits] was translucent and could not be selected.  He instead pressed the command for [Casual Wear].

More options were now available for him to choose from:
[Torso] [Legs] [Head] [Shoes] [Underclothes] [Hands] [Other]

Chris tapped the command first for torso and looked through the many shirts and tops that were available for him.  He selected a plain white t-shirt, the picture of which was visible to him as he pressed the [Select] button.

Chris was taken back to the previous menu.  Another button had appeared marked [Finalise].  Chris didn't touch this yet, as he would have only been wearing a t-shirt and nothing else.  So he moved straight to the next command which was [Legs].  Numerous pairs of trousers and shorts were shown.  Chris chose a pair of white and blue gradient jeans and pressed the [Select] button.

Chris now moved onto the [Head] command, and looked through a series of caps and visors that were available for him to choose from.  After some thorough searching, he chose a red beanie hat.

Next up was the [Shoes] list.  The first pair of trainers that came up for Chris was a pair of blue slip on trainers with fashionable white soles, these he chose.

As Chris was returned to the menu again, he knew that going commando wasn't an option for him, and that if he hadn't selected any undergarments, the dressing room machine would have removed the ones he was already wearing with his school trousers.  So he moved swiftly onto the [Underclothes] menu.  There were three more buttons before him now:  [Socks] [Underpants] [Vests].

Chris touched the [Underpants] button, and quickly selected a pair of blue boxer shorts.  Chris was taken back to the [Underclothes] menu.  He pressed a button at the top left of the screen marked [Go back], leading him back to the [Casual Wear] Menu.  He pressed the button for the [Hands] menu.

Only a pair of linen grey fingerless gloves was available to him at the present time.  He selected these, and went straight back to the previous menu.  At last, he felt happy with the choices of clothing he had made, and touched the [Finalise] button on the screen.

The clothes that Chris had chosen now appeared before him all at once, on a digitised mannequin to give him a realistic vision of what he would look like when he was completely dressed.  Four more options were available to him at this point: [Go Back] [Reset Attire] [Save As Outfit], and of course [Confirm].  The first thing that Chris pressed was the [Save As Outfit] button, this button changed briefly to [Saved] and flashed for a moment, before it changed back and went translucent.  Then Chris tapped the [Confirm] button.

The screen went back into the floor of the room; and then suddenly, Chris felt himself being relieved of gravity, and his body floated into the air.

"Whoa!"  He exclaimed.  "I wasn't expecting that."

As Chris's chosen clothes appeared before him out of thin air, he felt his sweater lift up and off of his torso, followed by the polo-shirt unbuttoning itself and following suit, baring his chest.  His socks were gently pulled off of his now bare feet.  The button and zip on his trousers were undone, and they were slid down and off of his legs, followed closely by his underpants, birthday suiting him.  As if by magic, the school clothes disappeared into thin air.

The machine then proceeded to dress him up in his casual attire.  Naturally, the boxer shorts were the first article to be placed on him.  His t-shirt was slipped onto his torso and covered his chest, the jeans went up his legs and did themselves up, the beanie hat was placed on his head, the gloves were slipped onto his hands, and the chosen trainers were slipped onto and covered his bare feet.  Now fully dressed again, the machine turned the gravity back on, Chris was carefully put back on the ground.

"Dress-up sequence complete.  Enjoy your afternoon."

Chris walked out of the machine, closing the doors behind him.  There was no mirror in the dressing room machine, but there was one to the right as Chris came out.  He stood before it and looked at himself up and down, admiring his look and attire.  When he was happy with his appearance, he headed for his bedroom door and walked out.

Chris headed downstairs to the living room and entered.  His father was seated on the sofa, watching the news on TV.  Chris sat down next to him, and the father turned to look at his son.

"Feeling better son?"

"I'm just glad to be out of my terrible school uniform.  I wish children in the UK were allowed to wear casual clothes."

"So what did you think of the updates that I had made to 'The Dressing Room Machine'?"

"I like the fact that you've added an outfits option, so I can set up complete attires to wear rather than looking through all of my available gear."

"What about the way that the machine dressed you?  How did you find that?"

"Weird.  Gravity just seemed to go away, and I was floating in midair.  But at least there's more breathing space in there now.  That seat was rather cramped into such a small space."

"That's why I got rid of it.  I thought it would be easier for you to be standing while the machinery dressed you up."

"Indeed.  It'll take some time for me to get used to the new technology."

Chris leant back against the sofa, and watched TV with his father.