Digital Fashion Takeover — Can virtual kill the fitting room?
Buying clothes is an experience that people either love or hate but, either way, the need to try clothes on is physically tiring and can make any shopping trip into a trial for many. Hot, untidy, cramped changing cubicles can ruin an occasion which should be entirely positive. But maybe you can put a lot of those clothes back on the rail — because digital has an answer.
More and more brands are looking at the use of ‘virtual clothes’ or ‘digital fashion’ to make shopping for clothes less of a chore. These virtual representations of clothing are the product of 3D modelling by computers. What makes this different is that we can now ‘wear’ them virtually through augmented reality or, alternatively, we can choose to make an avatar wear them, in a video game for example, and more widely in any virtual experience.
From virtual…
Virtual clothing is not new; in fact, since the 1980s, video game programmers have been dressing their characters in outfits that have become iconic (Super Mario and his blue overalls, Lara Croft and her tank top/mini shorts). However, today the practice has evolved and these outfits (called “skins”) have become a commodity that differentiates players and generates revenue for developers. The player’s dressing experience has rapidly moved from video game outfits giving them better characteristics and skills as in World of Warcraft to purely cosmetic outfits as in Fortnite or League of Legends. Indeed, entire games considered as free to play are based on the sale of these skins; League of Legends generated $1.75bln in revenue in 2020 mainly through in-app purchases of cosmetics.
…to reality
Alongside this, since 2018, brands like TheFabricant have started to appear. They use augmented reality technology, and blockchain with NFTs and offer their customers a digital clothing offer devoid of the physical and technical limitations of ordinary clothing. A customer can buy a product on the brand’s website or on a platform like DressX which acts as a digital multi-brand. Then, he just has to upload a photo of himself respecting certain instructions, to receive it again a few days later, but this time, with the worn garment integrated into the photo. This video shows influencer Safiya Nygaard explaining a real user experience using this service.
I Wore Digital Clothes For A Week — YouTube
Virtual clothing is a viable alternative to the overconsumption of fast fashion, as it is a way for influencers to create content for social networks without buying clothes. From a professional point of view, they already allow some fashion brands to create their prototypes digitally, to reduce their costs and their environmental impact.
The uses are now multiple but still limited
As I mentioned before, we can find among them a hyper-realistic integration of products to an existing photo, or a passive integration via the phone’s camera for photos or videos. There is also a purely artistic use with clothes and accessories in the form of NFTs; a virtual fitting of real clothes and accessories (sunglasses being the best example to date). It is also the world of retail that is undergoing a transformation. We have recently seen many brands build a virtual shopping environment to showcase virtual representations of their real-life products.
As we know, we are not yet in the era of the metaverse or of widespread AR that would allow us to wear our virtual clothes in the street. But the exponential growth of the NFTs market in 2021 has allowed the virtual fashion market to gain in attractiveness. As I write, the Gucci brand has announced a second NFT project in collaboration with the company Superplastic, which specialized in the production of Art Toys. The purchasers of these NFTs will be able to acquire both the digital article and the corresponding painted porcelain item.
Whether it is something to wear or to collect, virtual fashion is and will be enjoyed through our phone screens for a long time to come and it could well be the next revolution for the industry.
However, adoption will be the key. What do you think about the use of virtual reality technologies to try clothes before buying them? Would you use them? And what other digital fashion tech would you like to see in the future? Let me know in the comments below.
About this article
This article has been written by a student on the Grenoble Ecole de Management’s Advanced Masters in Digital Strategy Management. As part of a content creation assignment, students are given the task of writing articles based on their digital interests and disseminate the articles online. Articles are marked but we make minimal changes to the content. Thanks for reading! James Barisic, Programme Director, MS DSM.
