Forever 21 Will Recreate Your Instagrams Using 6400 Wooden Spools

If your Instagram picture is just too good to be stuck within the confines of your phone, consider having it recreated on a giant spool mosaic. Forever 21 asked Brooklyn agency Breakfast to create a digitally synced adjustable billboard that could display images. The result has been launched today and boasts about 200,000 parts, with 6.7 miles of fabric.

From now until next Tuesday, the enormous machine will be pumping out 'grams with the hashtag #F21ThreadScreen on a live feed. You can tune in any time of day to see what kind of pictures people are asking to be spool-ified. 

"Forever 21 was looking to experiment with something quite different than what they've done in the past," says Breakfast co-founder Andrew Zolty. "They gave us a rather open brief, and from the start we knew we wanted to build a web-connected experience that anyone could try from anywhere in the world."

After the moving device receives an image, it goes to work recreating it using its 6400 rotating wooden spools. Each spool has a rainbow cloth ribbon that can display 36 different colors. Think of each module as a pixel that together make up a 80-by-80 "pixel" image. 

The 2000 pound machine was made entirely from scratch and has more parts than a car. You can see more videos and information here. 

Explains Zolty, "We focused on thread, with it being the most basic element of fashion and quite versatile. We also focused on Instagram, as it's the most artistic/creative of social networks, and Forever 21 has a massive following on there. The idea developed from there."