5 Fashion Innovations to keep on the radar
The fashion’s business model is broken. It is harmful for the planet; it takes 6–12 months to get a product to market; and it relies on incremental innovation or technology developed decades ago.
The fashion industry has not changed in the past 25 years with the exception of online commerce. As we face our current crisis, we believe the fashion industry would be wise to take the situation as an opportunity to truly innovate.
Here we list some innovations which are being integrated into fashion for future use:
Made-to-order
If we really want to change the fashion industry, let’s make everything on-demand.
In the current apparel manufacturing market, garments are built for an audience, not for anyone in particular. From a cost-saving and sustainability point of view, the desirable business model would be creating a garment for someone, to fulfil an order.
With this shift on the business model, manufacturers wouldn’t hold out-of-season inventory; retailers would no longer make purchasing decisions six months before they need inventory; brands would increase or decrease supply of their product dynamically based on market demand; and fashion would be far more sustainable. 30 percent of all products manufactured each year are never sold and end up in landfills or are incinerated.
Distributed cloud-based supply chain
On-demand manufacturing means a product exists only when it’s wanted.
Distributed manufacturing means it exists only where it is wanted.
Nearshoring is definitely a way to make fashion less of a dirty word, and the switch to the cloud-based softwares helps companies in design, marketing, and sales in intensively digitized fashion world. Technology here will enpower companies to produce more efficiently while consumers to shop whenever and wherever.
Body Scanning
Three-dimensional body scanning has been around for some time. This technology combines both the ideas from the past, and the present, and creates great plans for the future.
3D body scanning has been used for 3D garment creation for on-the-spot mass customisation and to increase the sustainability of the apparel industry. Brands no longer need to rely on statistical versions of their customers, and can bring real customers into their design process virtually to create garments that fit bodies individually.
3D Digital Product Creation
Already widely adopted by product designers, architects and engineers, 3D digital product creation is becoming more popular among fashion designers. Using 3D modeling software to create new designs can benefit everyone along the supply chain all the way down to customers. The opportunities span time and cost savings, vast and swift sustainability gains and the ability to manufacture small quantities of products profitably.
There are even some ideas where brands put virtual styles out there for consumer feedback before they ever do produce the physical garment. Moreover, as people live and display more of their lives online — digital clothing has the potential to expand well to gaming and to our digital identities.
Experiential Commerce
The future of fashion technology in retail is going to be shaped by extra realities (AR, VR and MR) and Artificial Intelligence. These innovations will help brands to predict fashion trends assertively and plan for them.
Innovations which offer the opportunity for virtual experiences will also help in merchandising by making the product more available, and delivering it to people faster, immersively and wherever.
The transformation of the fashion industry mindset has begun. The above-mentioned points are just a few of the future innovations that are in process, or have been already adopted by some of the notable brands to bring something exciting for the customers.
Real systemic change will not happen if businesses continue focusing on incremental innovation in the last mile. We need to reimagine the system in a holistic way and face radical change beyond the length of the skirt or the floral print for next season.
