How virtual showrooms are the new real
I can still sense the smell of flowers (and hotdogs) in the streets of New York City in the spring, passing by the beautiful windows shops along 5th Avenue in Manhattan, where they unveil their elaborately planned and executed window designs.
Successful lifestyle brands have always know how to create an experience for their customers.
Transposing the consumer and the overall experience from the physical pleasures of fashion into satisfying online experiences is the problem. How can a digital vision ever simulate the richness of real life? But I guess the question better to ask is WHEN will that be possible?
As I remember growing up, I watched black and white tv, leaving aside the idea of having your life made public on social media and connecting globally from anywhere at any time. Who knows what can we expect from online shops and virtual showrooms in the next ten years considering the speed technology is growing at.
In fact, there’s been an average growth rate of 25.6 per cent in eCommerce sales over the years 2014 to 2017. That’s the proof, if some of you need, that eCommerce is thriving and has been for a while
New technologies are emerging, but the front lines are not consumer-facing digital fashion shows. Instead, it’s showrooms, the connection points between brands and retail buyers, that have become the playground for luxury fashion’s digital experiments.
COVID-19 forced brands and retailers to adapt to a new way of working, including how they wholesale their goods. The best part of technology is #fashtech and how it is used to push for sustainability in fashion.
Born out of firsthand frustration of fashion’s broken system, its wastefulness, and a belief that digitization is the answer to efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and true sustainability -Voor3D has built a platform that helps brands achieve their sustainability goals while cutting costs.
The Voor solution is placed right after the design phase to digitize most processes downstream through its webapp, which offers several benefits to designers and brands (no VR headset needed!). For instance, designers can significantly reduce the number of samples by showing their designs in virtual reality and fit their styles digitally instead of back-and-forth fits with the factory.
At the moment, Voor 3D is in its beta phase but fully operational and has already garnered attention from some of the biggest brands, including Melissa Shoes, Avia, and Everlane.
“We’re in the midst of a seismic change in the fashion world. Sustainability is not the only big talk at this moment. From consumer values to the spillover of tech, brands need to be brave to self-disrupt. It’s either you stay as a Blockbuster, or you become a Netflix,” says Tracy Wong, Founder of Voor3D, in reference to the way fashion brands need to adapt to the now and next in tech.
Fashion industry and VR is a combination destined to flourish and I would love to see a dedicated #fashtech stage, in which the future (virtual) of fashion concept was discussed, debated and challenged.
#Fashtech #virtualshowroom #sustainability
