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As this season's fashion weeks wrap up in London, Milan, New York, and Paris, brands are working to produce and sell the designs they've just showcased on runways-and they're starting next season's collections. In the future, it's entirely possible that those designs will blend the prowess of a creative director with the power of generative artificial intelligence (AI), helping to bring clothes and accessories to market faster, selling them more efficiently, and improving the customer experience.

By now, you've likely heard of OpenAI's ChatGPT, the AI chatbot that became an overnight sensation and sparked a digital race to build and release competitors. ChatGPT is only one consumer-friendly example of generative AI, a technology comprising algorithms that can be used to create new content, including audio, code, images, text, simulations, and videos. Rather than simply identifying and classifying information, generative AI creates new information by leveraging foundation models, which are deep learning models that can handle multiple complex tasks at the same time. Examples include GPT-3.5 and DALL-E. (For more on generative AI and machine learning, see " What is generative AI?" and " Generative AI is here: How tools like ChatGPT could change your business.")

While the fashion industry has experimented with basic AI and other frontier technologies-the metaverse, nonfungible tokens (NFTs), digital IDs, and augmented or virtual reality come to mind-it has so far had little experience with generative AI. True, this nascent technology became broadly available only recently and is still rife with worrisome kinks and bugs, but all indications are that it could improve at lightning speed and become a game changer in many aspects of business. In the next three to five years, generative AI could add $150 billion, conservatively, and up to $275 billion to the apparel, fashion, and luxury sectors' operating profits, according to McKinsey analysis. From codesigning to speeding content development processes, generative AI creates new space for creativity. It can input all forms of "unstructured" data-raw text, images, and video-and output new forms of media, ranging from fully-written scripts to 3-D designs and realistic virtual models for video campaigns.

These are still early days, but some clear use cases for generative AI in fashion have already emerged. (Many of these use cases also apply to the adjacent beauty and luxury sectors.) Within product innovation, marketing, and sales and customer experience in particular, the technology can have significant outcomes and may be more feasible to implement in the short term compared with other areas in the fashion value chain. In this article, we outline some of the most promising use cases and offer steps executives can take to get started, as well as risks to keep in mind when doing so.

In our view, generative AI is not just automation-it's about augmentation and acceleration. That means giving fashion professionals and creatives the technological tools to do certain tasks dramatically faster, freeing them up to spend more of their time doing things that only humans can do. It also means creating systems to serve customers better. Here's where to begin.

Understanding the use cases

Generative AI has the potential to affect the entire fashion ecosystem. Fashion companies can use the technology to help create better-selling designs, reduce marketing costs, hyperpersonalize customer communications, and speed up processes. It may also reshape supply chain and logistics, store operations, and organization and support functions (see sidebar, "Generative AI use cases in fashion").

Product development and innovation

Instead of relying on trend reports and market analysis alone to inform designs for next season's collection, both mass-market fashion retailers and luxury brands' creative directors can use generative AI to analyze in real time various types of unstructured data. Generative AI can, for example, quickly aggregate and perform sentiment analysis from videos on social media or model trends from multiple sources of consumer data.

Creative directors and their teams could input sketches and desired details-such as fabrics, color palettes, and patterns-into a platform powered by generative AI that automatically creates an array of designs, thus allowing designers to play with an enormous variety of styles and looks. A team might then design new items based on these outputs, putting a fashion house's signature touch on each of the looks. This opens the door to creating innovative, limited-edition product drops that may also be collaborations between two brands. Products such as eyeglasses could be designed for individuals by using facial-recognition technology powered by generative AI to scan facial topography and adjust for a customer's size and style preferences.

This scenario became reality in December 2022, when a group of Hong Kong-based fashion designers from the Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence in Design (AiDLab) held a fashion show featuring generative-AI-supported designs. Using tools from tech companies such as Cala, Designovel, and Fashable, fashion designers are already tapping into the power of generative AI to spark new ideas, try myriad design variations without having to produce expensive samples, and vastly accelerate their processes. (For beauty businesses, generative AI also provides an opportunity for brands to identify new product formulations, potentially helping to reduce lab testing costs.)

Marketing

Marketing executives and agencies can use generative AI to brainstorm campaign strategies, product campaign content, and even virtual avatars for every marketing channel-and do it fast.

Striking marketing gold can often be a numbers game. Consider TikTok: there's no single winning formula for going viral on the platform. Instead, the more you produce, the higher your chances are of becoming a trending topic and boosting brand awareness and sales. Prompting a generative-AI-powered video platform to create short-form videos for TikTok or other social-media platforms can help save time and costs associated with pumping out social-media content. Generative AI can recognize patterns and trends in viral content and create new content that also follows specifications from the marketer.

These exercises can help in-house marketing teams manage their workloads while reducing their reliance on outsourcing work to creative agencies. Marketers will want to be careful with this approach, however: trying to reach consumers by replicating what other brands have done can counteract the unique identity and value proposition that a brand spends years building.

Generative AI could also be applied to personalized customer communications. Companies that excel at personalization increase revenues by 40 percent compared with companies that don't leverage personalization, according to McKinsey research.

Several start-ups-CopyAI, Jasper AI, and Writesonic, to name just a few-are helping pioneer personalized marketing at scale through generative AI. Using these tools, a marketer's daily tasks might start to look like this: they could choose the type of content they want to create, whether it's an email, a long-form blog post, or something else; add a prompt describing what they are looking for; and include the targeted audience and other parameters, such as tone, that help create marketing communications that are in line with the brand. The AI tool then offers several options from which the marketer can choose.

These tools are most helpful when applied to lower-funnel marketing channels (those that are mostly used to encourage sales conversions) as opposed to more prestigious brand-building communications. Marketers are still required to prompt and edit the work.

Sales and consumer experience

Today's generative-AI-powered chats, which use stronger natural-language processing to better understand and interact with humans, are already a measurable improvement over existing AI chats. That said, there isn't (yet) a foolproof generative-AI chatbot for businesses-current chatbots and other text-generating tools still occasionally make errors that could cause serious customer service disasters. Eventually, though, this technology could help customer support agents outsource complex inquiries-for example, using chatbots to help provide personalized responses in numerous languages.

Today, there are services that assign a generative AI "representative" to a brand to handle customer service queries across email, chat, text, and a brand's own platforms. These services help to reduce customer service wait times and improve response times.

Generative-AI agents can also serve luxury brands, particularly when it comes to "clienteling," a retail strategy whereby sales associates develop long-term relationships with a brand's highest-spending customers to encourage purchases and improve brand loyalty. (High-end brands can hit a sales conversion rate of 60 to 70 percent in luxury boutiques, through appointment-only shopping, for example.) That process has remained somewhat analog and manual, relying on brands' sales associates to reach out to customers through a variety of messaging platforms or texts, and is limited to only when those associates are working. Generative-AI-powered tools can keep the conversation going or make styling recommendations after a shopper leaves the store, coach sales associates on how to engage with customers, personalize communications for specific customers, and analyze consumer profiles and online real-time interaction.

In July 2022, apparel retailer Stitch Fix said it was experimenting with GPT-3 and DALL-E 2, the text-to-image AI generator, to boost sales and improve customer satisfaction with better styling services. These generative models are being tested to help stylists quickly and accurately interpret reams of customer feedback and curate products that customers would be likelier to purchase. For example, the AI tool could analyze all of a customer's feedback, which could include hundreds of text comments, email requests, product ratings, and online posts. If a customer regularly comments on, say, the "great fit" and "fun color" of a certain style of pants, DALL-E could generate images of similar pants that the customer would likely want to purchase. The stylist could then find similar items in Stitch Fix's inventory and recommend them to that customer.

Virtual try-ons are yet another example of how generative AI can improve sales and consumer experience. Paris-based Veesual enables virtual try-on integration for e-commerce fashion brands, meaning customers can choose their model and pick clothes to try on.

How to get started

As exciting as generative-AI technology might be, companies will still want to tread cautiously before entrusting any of their core tasks entirely to generative AI. But neglecting to explore the possibilities that this technology offers could be just as risky, given the pace at which it is evolving and the explosive growth of the user base. Executives can start thinking now about how their businesses could use generative AI. There are a few steps leaders can take to begin.

Make value your North Star

Fashion leaders should outline where generative AI can offer the greatest value to their business. Start by noting which areas-creative design, merchandising, runway campaigns, or clienteling-could benefit the most from generative AI. Leaders can then prioritize the generative AI use cases they should pursue based on the level of impact the use cases may have on their business. Some measures of impact include improving customer satisfaction scores and reducing customer service wait times.

Once the value is identified, use cases should also be prioritized according to how feasible they are to implement; determining how seamlessly generative AI can be used will depend on things like a team's technical skills. Afterward, teams should build a short-term road map to test and validate these use cases. At the same time, they can also consider what long-term goals might include, such as how to build a generative-design platform that can be updated and used by designers for every season.

It may be tempting to have a bit of fun with generative AI, but harnessing its power will take extra diligence. Fashion executives must be intentional in building tools that can deliver value rather than experiment with existing tools indiscriminately.

Know risks and plan to mitigate them

In a previous article, we listed some of the risks of using generative AI. One is that the legal parameters around generative AI's use are still being ironed out. Designers are sometimes criticized for creating derivative works and copycat designs. Determining who owns the intellectual property and creative rights to AI-generated works, which could be based on multimodal data sources such as other designers' past collections, will be decided on a case-by-case basis until there is a strong legal precedent. (Although it doesn't involve generative AI, the high-profile battle between Hermès and artist Mason Rothschild surrounding MetaBirkin NFTs, in which a judge ruled that the NFTs infringed on Hermès's trademark, shows how fashion brands can become embroiled in legal conundrums when new technologies emerge.)

Another risk is bias and fairness in generative-AI systems, particularly around biased data sets, which may present reputational challenges for brands that rely on the technology. For example, if an image-generating tool produces an advertising campaign with inappropriate or offensive images that are then shared globally, a brand's reputation could be hurt. And pointing fingers at the company AI in an attempt at damage control may do little to calm consumer ire.

There is also the risk that employees who use generative AI are not fully aware of its shortcomings and may fail to check for errors introduced by the technology. In this case, businesses must regularly train employees and provide them with the resources they need to understand how to use the technology.

While risks are unavoidable, executives can mitigate their potential impact by establishing a process to address risk, ethics, and quality assurance.

Upskill your current workforce

Generative-AI tools could add value to a host of different areas of a business, so it will be important to educate and train employees-including designers, marketers, sales associates, and customer service representatives-on the use of the technology.

Some businesses have already introduced AI-focused training. Levi Strauss, for one, launched a machine learning boot camp in 2021 to train nontech employees on how to use machine learning in the company's design process. Employees who complete the program create new AI tools that are relevant to their work. One of Levi's goals with the program is to increase the diversity of employees who have tech knowledge so that the company can uncover problems that employees who come from traditional technology backgrounds might otherwise miss. The program also helps teams with different specializations-such as design teams and engineering teams-communicate better and find common ground. Furthermore, Levi's has found that the program helps improves employee retention.

With an AI-savvy workforce, collaboration will take on a new meaning. Leaders should consider: How do we define responsibilities and operate collectively between technical and nontechnical roles? Design and software engineering teams can set up weekly leadership meetings to strategize quarterly road maps and working sessions among teams. Design leads can share their needs for certain insights and tools (a tool that generates design variations from a sketch, perhaps), while engineering teams deliver those tools.

Partner with the right tech support

Fashion businesses will no doubt have to invest in their workforce when it comes to leveraging generative AI, but they won't have to build out applications or foundation models themselves. Instead, fashion leaders can partner with generative-AI businesses and experts to move quickly. A fashion executive might partner with a business (such as Microsoft or OpenAI) that provides new technology or a partner that provides support capabilities (such as cloud computing or APIs).

While the potential use cases for generative AI are coming to light quickly, the future of this technology in the apparel and luxury industries is still being stitched together. But experimenting with new tools today means opening infinite possibilities tomorrow.

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Generative AI: Unlocking the future of fashion

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While still nascent, generative AI has the potential to help fashion businesses become more productive, get to market faster, and serve customers better.

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Amazon’s new algorithm designs clothing by analyzing a bunch of pictures

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From linear to limitless: pioneering circularity within the fashion and luxury sector

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The Institute for Positive Fashion (IPF) sits at the heart of the British Fashion
Council (BFC), and Deloitte is proud to support it as the Delivery Collaborator to the Institute for Positive Fashion (IPF) annual forum.

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Renting or buying second-hand clothing as a sustainable option

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During COVID-19, supply chains in the apparel industry have proved to be unreliable and the demand for clothing fell dramatically.

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Matt Scullin, MycoWorks CEO, says:

"We could not imagine a better partner than Hermès to present our first object made of Fine Mycelium. Hermès and MycoWorks share common values of craftsmanship, quality, innovation, and patience.

A collaboration three years in the making, Sylvania is the result of a shared vision for growing the future of materials and a quest to unlock new design possibilities. I was introduced to MycoWorks in 2017, which coincided with Hermès' first experience with Fine Mycelium. At the time, MycoWorks was based in a small artist's studio. Together, we saw the potential of this incredible material.

The power of storytelling is key in any new technology or art. Hermès related to our story: that Fine Mycelium was rooted in artistic practice and craftsmanship. At the same time, Hermès recognized that MycoWorks' unique biotechnology approach to enhancing a natural material meant that Fine Mycelium had the potential to be the highest quality mycelium in the world.

Sylvania represents how nature and biotechnology can work in concert to create a material with the highest standards of quality."

Pierre-Alexis Dumas, Hermès Artistic Director, says:

"MycoWorks' vision and values echo those of Hermès: a strong fascination with natural raw material and its transformation, a quest for excellence, with the aim of ensuring that objects are put to their best use and that their longevity is maximized. With Sylvania, Hermès is at the heart of what it has always been: innovation in the making."

Fine Mycelium, the genesis of Sylvania, is produced in the MycoWorks facility. It is then tanned and finished in France by the Hermès tanners to further refine its strength and durability, and shaped in the workshops by the Hermès craftspeople.

This collaboration pairs expertise in tanning the highest quality materials with the tools of biotechnology.

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An Exclusive Collaboration by Hermès and MycoWorks - MycoWorks

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Matt Scullin, MycoWorks CEO, says: "We could not imagine a better partner than Hermès to present our first object made of Fine Mycelium. Hermès and MycoWorks share common values of craftsmanship, quality, innovation, and patience. A collaboration three years in the making, Sylvania is the result of a shared vision for growing the future of materials and a quest to unlock new design possibilities.

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G-Star RAW Releases AI-Designed Futuristic Denim Collection

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G-Star RAW Releases AI-Designed Futuristic Denim Collection: Creating 12 cape-like designs.

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Advanced and innovative materials reshaping fashion industry

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The fashion industry is undergoing a significant transformation, driven by an urgent need for sustainability, enhanced performance, and…

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AI Fashion Design Experiment By Students and Brands

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AI Fashion Design Experiment By Students and Brands

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Students Team with IBM and Tommy Hilfiger to Use AI

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Fifteen FIT students from three majors—Textile Development and Marketing, International Trade and Marketing for the Fashion Industries, and Fashion Design—plus three faculty mentors teamed up with…

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A New Textiles Economy: Redesigning fashion’s future

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Fashion is a vibrant industry that employs hundreds of millions, generates significant revenues, and touches almost everyone, everywhere.

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Clothing retailers like Zara, Forever 21, and H&M make cheap and fashionable clothing to satisfy the needs of young consumers. Yet, fast fashion has a significant environmental impact. According to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the industry is the second-biggest consumer of water and is responsible for about 10% of global carbon emissions - more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined. Unfortunately, fast fashion problems are often overlooked by consumers.
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What Is Fast Fashion?

The term ' fast fashion ' has become more prominent in conversations surrounding fashion, sustainability, and environmental consciousness. The term refers to 'cheaply produced and priced garments that copy the latest catwalk styles and get pumped quickly through stores in order to maximise on current trends'.

The fast fashion model is so-called because it involves the rapid design, production, distribution, and marketing of clothing, which means that retailers are able to pull large quantities of greater product variety and allow consumers to get more fashion and product differentiation at a low price.

The term was first used at the beginning of the 1990s, when when Zara landed in New York. "Fast fashion" was coined by the New York Times to describe Zara's mission to take only 15 days for a garment to go from the design stage to being sold in stores. The biggest players in the fast fashion world include Zara, UNIQLO, Forever 21 and H&M.

The Dark Side of Fast Fashion

According to an analysis by Business Insider, fashion production comprises 10% of total global carbon emissions, as much as the European Union. It dries up water sources and pollutes rivers and streams, while 85% of all textiles go to dumps each year. Even washing clothes releases 500,000 tons of microfibres into the ocean each year, the equivalent of 50 billion plastic bottles.

The Quantis International 2018 report found that the three main drivers of the industry's global pollution impacts are dyeing and finishing (36%), yarn preparation (28%) and fibre production (15%). The report also established that fibre production has the largest impact on freshwater withdrawal (water diverted or withdrawn from a surface water or groundwater source) and ecosystem quality due to cotton cultivation, while the dyeing and finishing, yarn preparation and fibre production stages have the highest impacts on resource depletion, due to the energy-intensive processes based on fossil fuel energy.

According to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, emissions from textile manufacturing alone are projected to skyrocket by 60% by 2030.

The time it takes for a product to go through the supply chain, from design to purchase, is called a ' lead time '. In 2012, Zara was able to design, produce and deliver a new garment in two weeks; Forever 21 in six weeks and H&M in eight weeks. This results in the fashion industry producing obscene amounts of waste.

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Our non-profit newsroom provides climate coverage free of charge and advertising. Your one-off or monthly donations play a crucial role in supporting our operations, expanding our reach, and maintaining our editorial independence.

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You Might Also Like: The 9 Essential Fast Fashion Statistics
Fast Fashion and Its Environmental Impact

1. Water

The environmental impact of fast fashion comprises the depletion of non-renewable sources, emission of greenhouse gases and the use of massive amounts of water and energy. The fashion industry is the second largest consumer industry of water, requiring about 700 gallons to produce one cotton shirt and 2 000 gallons of water to produce a pair of jeans. Business Insider also cautions that textile dyeing is the world's second-largest polluter of water, since the water leftover from the dyeing process is often dumped into ditches, streams or rivers.

2. Microplastics

Furthermore, brands use synthetic fibres like polyester, nylon and acrylic which take hundreds of years to biodegrade. A 2017 report from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimated that 35% of all microplastics - tiny pieces of non-biodegradable plastic - in the ocean come from the laundering of synthetic textiles like polyester.

According to the documentary released in 2015, The True Cost, the world consumes around 80 billion new pieces of clothing every year, 400% more than the consumption twenty years ago. The average American now generates 82 pounds of textile waste each year. The production of leather requires large amounts of feed, land, water and fossil fuels to raise livestock, while the tanning process is among the most toxic in all of the fashion supply chain because the chemicals used to tan leather- including mineral salts, formaldehyde, coal-tar derivatives and various oils and dyes- is not biodegradable and contaminates water sources.

3. Energy

The production of making plastic fibres into textiles is an energy-intensive process that requires large amounts of petroleum and releases volatile particulate matter and acids like hydrogen chloride. Additionally, cotton, which is in a large amount of fast fashion products, is also not environmentally friendly to manufacture. Pesticides deemed necessary for the growth of cotton presents health risks to farmers.

To counter this waste caused by fast fashion, more sustainable fabrics that can be used in clothing include wild silk, organic cotton, linen, hemp and lyocell.
You might Also Like: How to Recognise Fast Fashion Brands and Which Ones to Avoid
The Social Impacts of Fast Fashion

Fast fashion does not only have a huge environmental impact. In fact, the industry also poses societal problems, especially in developing economies. According to non-profit Remake, 80% of apparel is made by young women between the ages of 18 and 24. A 2018 US Department of Labor report found evidence of forced and child labour in the fashion industry in Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Turkey, Vietnam and others. Rapid production means that sales and profits supersede human welfare.

In 2013, an eight-floor factory building that housed several garment factories collapsed in Dhaka, Bangladesh, killing 1,134 workers and injuring more than 2,500. In her project An Analysis of the Fast Fashion Industry, Annie Radner Linden suggests that 'the garment industry has always been a low-capital and labour intensive industry'.

In her book No Logo, Naomi Klein argues that developing nations are viable for garment industries due to 'cheap labour, vast tax breaks, and lenient laws and regulations'. According to The True Cost, one in six people work in some part of the global fashion industry, making it the most labour-dependent industry. These developing nations also rarely follow environmental regulations; China, for example, is a major producer of fast fashion but is notorious for land degradation and air and water pollution.
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Is Slow Fashion the Solution?

Slow fashion is the widespread reaction to fast fashion and its environmental impact, the argument for hitting the brakes on excessive production, overcomplicated supply chains, and mindless consumption. It advocates for manufacturing that respects people, the environment and animals.

The World Resources Institute suggests that companies need to design, test and invest in business models that reuse clothes and maximise their useful life. The UN has launched the Alliance for Sustainable Fashion to address the damages caused by fast fashion. It is seeking to 'halt the environmentally and socially destructive practices of fashion'.
You might also like: What Is Slow Fashion and How Can You Join the Movement?
One way that shoppers are reducing their consumption of fast fashion is by buying from secondhand sellers like ThredUp Inc. and Poshmark, both based in California, USA; shoppers send their unwanted clothes to these websites and people buy those clothes at a lower price than the original. Another solution is renting clothes, like the US-based Rent the Runway and Gwynnie Bee, the UK based Girl Meets Dress, and the Dutch firm Mud Jeans that leases organic jeans which can be kept, swapped or returned.

Other retailers like Adidas are experimenting with personalised gear to cut down on returns, increase customer satisfaction and reduce inventory. Ralph Lauren has announced that it will use 100% sustainably-sourced key materials by 2025.

Governments need to be more actively involved in the fashion industry's damaging effects. UK ministers rejected a report by members of parliament to address the environmental effects of fast fashion. On the other hand, French president, Emmanuel Macron has made a pact with 150 brands to make the fashion industry more sustainable.
Featured image by EO Photographer Chin Leong Teo
The best advice on reducing the environmental impact of fast fashion comes from Patsy Perry, senior lecturer in fashion marketing at the University of Manchester, who says, "Less is always more."

This story is funded by readers like you

Our non-profit newsroom provides climate coverage free of charge and advertising. Your one-off or monthly donations play a crucial role in supporting our operations, expanding our reach, and maintaining our editorial independence.

About EO | Mission Statement | Impact & Reach | Write for us

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Fast Fashion: Its Detrimental Effect on the Environment

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Fast fashion has a massive environmental impact, it is the second-biggest consumer of water and is responsible for nearly 10% of global carbon emissions.

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As more spending moves online and customers' digital preferences evolve, retailers and brands are quickly responding with technology to enhance online shopping experiences, including virtual try-on tech.

Virtual try-on uses technologies like augmented reality, computer vision, and artificial intelligence to allow customers to overlay images of clothes, makeup, and other accessories on an image of themselves or an avatar to visualize how an item will look.

A number of leading startups have emerged in the virtual try-on space, which we highlight in our ESP Matrix below.

Retailers are increasingly using virtual try-on tech to visualize a range of products - from clothing and sporting goods to footwear. These efforts capitalize on the predominance of social media culture (e.g., selfies) and existing consumer behavior to create a unique path to purchase .

Virtual try-on technology provides opportunities to increase engagement as well as drive margin expansion by reducing returns and raising conversion rates. Fit and size are the main reasons for online apparel returns, accounting for 42% of returns, according to the NRF .

In this brief, we assess activity in virtual try-on from several leading retailers and brands - Amazon, Alibaba, Kering, Nike, and Walmart - using their vendor relationships, partnerships, investments, and M&A activity since 2017.
This analysis is not meant to be exhaustive of all investment and partnership activity in the analyzed period.
Key takeaways

AI will make online product pages more immersive and dynamic, helping shoppers see products on themselves or avatars created in their likeness. Today, leading retailers are using 3D models and holograms for shoppers to see products on models similar to themselves. The next step will be synthetic models that are an exact replica of the consumer. AI that scans a shopper's body or face can also offer more tailored recommendations and improved fit suggestions. In the future, expect body-scanning tech to be commonplace.

Virtual try-on tools allow brands to bring the discovery aspect of in-store retail to smartphones, while also capitalizing on users' social media behavior - making the mobile shopping experience more engaging and personalized. This is a connection Virtual fitting is a new route to brand engagement. social platforms like Facebook, Snapchat, and TikTok are leaning into as they build positions as shopping hubs .

Broadly, virtual shopping and metaverses will gain more attention. While not strictly related to try-ons or fitting, virtual stores could simulate what shoppers are looking for when they assess clothing fit in person.

Amazon

Big tech players like Amazon are reaching further into commerce. Outside China, Amazon is now the largest retailer globally, and became the top apparel seller in the US last year.

Amazon's fashion plans involve a focus on virtual try-ons. For one, the retailer is building out its capabilities to develop the technology in-house: In June 2021, it introduced an AR-powered sneaker try-on feature in its shopping app, with shoes from brands including New Balance, Adidas, and Reebok.

It has also leveraged acquisitions to accelerate its efforts in the space.
Relationship: Acquisition
Amazon acquired Body Labs , which makes 3D body models that could be used for virtual fit technology , in October 2017.

A few months after the acquisition, the e-commerce giant applied for a patent for a "blended reality system" to create an AR mirror for at-home try-ons.

The patent was granted in January 2018. If commercialized, Amazon's mirror invention would place users in virtual clothes and in virtual settings, allowing them to see what a dress would look like on the gala floor, or see a new swimsuit at the beach, before completing a purchase.
Source: USPTO

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The virtual fitting room: How Amazon, Walmart, Alibaba, and others are using AI and AR to transform shopping - CB Insights Research

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As more spending moves online and customers' digital preferences evolve, retailers and brands are quickly responding with technology to enhance online shopping experiences, including virtual try-on tech. Virtual try-on uses technologies like augmented reality, computer vision, and artificial intelligence to allow customers to overlay images of clothes, makeup, and other accessories on an image of themselves or an avatar to visualize how an item will look.

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Paris, December 17, 2018 – A new study from the Capgemini Research Institute has dispelled some of the mystique around AI’s value to retail businesses and

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European online fashion retailer Zalando is using generative artificial intelligence to produce imagery faster for its app and website, it said on Wednesday, as AI shakes up the fashion industry and cuts costs.

Zalando, which sells branded clothes, shoes, and accessories across 25 markets in Europe, is using AI to produce imagery quickly enough to respond to short-lived fashion trends spread on social media. It is also developing AI-generated "digital twins" of models to use in its marketing.

"We are using AI to be able to be reactive," Matthias Haase, vice president of content solutions at Zalando, told Reuters in an interview.

Using generative AI cuts the time needed to produce imagery to around three to four days from six to eight weeks, and reduces costs by 90 percent, Haase said, adding the AI-generated content drives greater engagement from customers.

"It's not because of AI content that is better than human-created content, it is really about how new, how relevant it is to our customers," Haase added.

Around 70 percent of Zalando's editorial campaign images were AI-generated in the fourth quarter of last year as it has increased use of the technology. AI-generated images illustrated Zalando's recap of the year's biggest trends, including "brat summer," "mob wife" and double denim.

For an industry used to costly, meticulously planned fashion shoots on sets or in far-flung locations, the prospect of using AI to speed up production and use marketing money more efficiently is of particular appeal to retailers with far smaller budgets than the big, luxury players.

Zalando is the latest retailer to try out AI-generated digital twins of models, after Sweden's H&M in March said it created digital twins in collaboration with a modelling agency.

The AI-generated three-dimensional replicas enable Zalando to feature a model in a campaign and show an exact replica of that model in the app's product pages, without needing to take hundreds of photos.

Asked how generative AI could affect job prospects for fashion photographers, Haase said traditional fashion shoots will still be needed, but that photographers and other creatives will also have to adapt to using AI tools.

"Creative people fear that AI makes creatives redundant," Haase said. "I don't see that at all, to be honest. ... I see it rather that creative minds have now, instead of two hands, six hands."
By Helen Reid; Edited by Barbara Lewis Learn more: AI Is Coming for Fashion's Creative Class As generative artificial intelligence takes on work once reserved for stylists, photographers, and PR strategists, creatives are being pushed to prove the value of human ingenuity - and find new ways to protect it.

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Zalando Uses AI to Speed up Marketing Campaigns, Cut Costs

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The European fashion e-tailer is using generative AI to produce cheaper imagery faster for its app and website, and is developing 'digital twins' of models.

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Company That Help Fashion Brand in Sustainability Initiatives

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Company That Help Fashion Brand in Sustainability Initiatives

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Data Scientist About AI in Fashion (Personal Research Interview) 

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Data Scientist About AI in Fashion (Personal Research Interview) 

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With climate change on everyone's mind, new and sustainable fabrics are being developed all over the world. But, how do you tell which materials are genuine and which are trying to profit from the movement? ELLISS have created this handy article to give you the latest in new and innovative fabrics, read on for more.

Cotton alternatives

Although cotton is a natural fibre, non-organic cotton isn't great for the environment. The growth of the product has been known to cause soil erosion, soil degradation and water contamination. It requires a lot of water (20,000 litres to grow one kilo of cotton to be exact) and the pesticides that are often used in its growth cause further environmental damage. As well as organic cotton (produced without any nasty chemicals), there are some innovative alternatives that have been invented.

Recover

Although not an entirely new product, Recover uses textile waste and transforms it into new yarns to continue the product lifecycle. Instead of disused fibres ending up in landfills or degrading in our oceans, the Recover innovation manufactures upcycled yarns into clothing, accessories and home textile products.

They collect used clothing at collection bins, or sort and recover garments from different depositories. The material is then cut, shredded and spun into usable yarns which can be woven as normal fibres would be!

Samatoa

Describing themselves as "the most spiritual fabric in the world", the Samatoa is soft, breathable and almost crease-free. They weave their fabrics by hand using age-old Cambodian techniques to achieve the desired effect. Samatoa was recognized by the UNESCO Prize for Excellence for its use of the lotus flower in the making of a sarong, praising the innovative mix of lotus fibres, silk and natural dyes.

Food by-products

You might not have considered it, but there are many by-products of food that make great fibre alternatives for clothing. Not only are they strong and wearable, but many of the garments are biodegradable or the product of components that would have otherwise gone to waste. From pineapple leaves to potato waste, there are many innovations that have come from foods!

MycoTEX

Currently, in the prototype stage of development, the MycoTEX brand is part of the WEARsustain project and has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. The material is 100% biodegradable and is based on mycelium, the root of mushrooms. Although it sounds strange, they've created some cool wearable prototypes and have certainly caused disruption in the fashion industry.

Because it is manufactured in a lab, there is no need for expensive farmland, excess waste, chemicals or pesticides. Once the garment has reached the end of its lifecycle, simply bury it in the ground and it will decompose!

Piñatex

Piñatex is an innovative material that is made from pineapple leaf fibre, it is seen by many as an alternative to leather. The supply chain and methods used in manufacturing Piñatex creates additional income for farming communities without harming animals. The brand prides itself on being sustainably-sourced with little environmental impact.

The brand was started when a leathergoods expert became shocked to hear about the effect that leather production has on the environment and the amount of chemicals that are used in its manufacturing. That was when she came up with the natural alternative which began with sampling and developed into the brand that it is today.

Parblex

Parblex Plastics are reinforced bioplastics that have been created using potato waste. Their aim is to tackle the huge issue of plastic pollution and the fact that only 15% of plastic makes it to recycling facilities. When it comes to the accessories that we see on the high-street, you would have noticed that many are made from plastic - whether it's glasses, costume jewellery or hair accessories.

Their main suppliers are McCain, a family-owned company who are passionate about their ingredients and run many sustainability projects alongside production.

Orange Fiber

Orange Fiber is the first of their kind, they're a business that has produced patented material from the orange by-product. The brand creates a fabric that has been likened to silk, and it can be combined with other materials to create a range of garments and products. The aesthetics of the material isn't to be underestimated, it is soft, silky and lightweight - making it a perfect alternative to non-organic cotton or synthetic silks.

Depending on the way that it is produced, it can be opaque or shiny meaning it is suitable for a range of customers and their preferences. The process begins with using what is left of the fruit after it has been 'industrially squeezed'. The cellulose is used to create a polymer that can be spun in the same way as wool or any type of yarn. Due to the high-quality properties of the material, the brand is well-suited to premium and luxury brands.

Nanollose

Australian company Nanollose, have created garments from cellulose fibres that have been extracted from waste products in the food industry such as coconuts. It was innovated as a sustainable alternative to rayon and cotton which both have a negative impact on the environment throughout their production process.

The coconut fiber waste material has been named 'Nullarbor' and it has been woven into stylish jumpers such as the one pictured. Their plan is to introduce it to manufacturers who want an easy-to-use and eco-friendly alternative to synthetic fabrics.

Singtex

When a cup of coffee is created using a filter and machine, a lot of ground coffee ends up in the bin. One Taiwanese textile company has used processed coffee ground and combined it with a polymer to create a yarn that can be weaved. The material has gone on to be crafted into outdoor wear, sportswear and even household items.

Properties of the material include anti-odour qualities, UV-ray protection and quick drying time. Many synthetic materials do not have these abilities and it is a great use of a product that would otherwise have gone to waste. By partnering with companies that use a lot of coffee such as Starbucks, they are able to source materials at a low cost and as part of a mutually beneficial relationship.

Unique fibres

As well as plant-based and food-based products, there are also some innovations that are truly unique. These are often based on years of development and sampling, created by people who are passionate about finding durable and sustainable alternatives to materials that are harming the environment.

SeaCell

Would you ever have imagined that seaweed would produce fibres that are suitable to make long-lasting clothing? SeaCell has made it possible. Using the Lyocell production method (a process with no waste chemicals) the high-tech fibres can preserve the natural elements of seaweed, even after washing.

The elements in seaweed are rich in vitamins, amino acids and minerals, as well as aiding cell regeneration. This is great for sufferers of skin diseases, inflammation and itchiness and it's a softer alternative to the synthetic fabrics that we see on the high street today.

The aesthetic properties of the fibre are a smooth and silky finish that is suitable for activewear, underwear, loungewear and home textiles. It can also be used in collaboration with other fibres to increase its strength or add colour.

Seaqual

SEAQUAL works with members of local communities such as NGOs and fisherman to create products out of recycled polyester yarn and waste products that are captured from the sea. Not only do they reduce the amount of plastic that is currently in our ocean, but they create something usable and useful out of it.

Fishermen help to clean rubbish from the ocean which goes on to be made into polyester yarn. Then it goes on to be woven, here it is mixed with natural, recycled or recovered fibres. After this stage, ecological dyes are applied and the garment is ready to wear!

Microsilk

Microsilks is one of many innovative materials that technology company Bolt Threads have created. This material, in particular, has been developed to replicate the strength and elasticity of spider webs.

Bolt Threads carefully studied spider webs to find out exactly what gave the web its unique properties. Proteins were then developed to replicate these components which went on to be spun into fibres that are similar to synthetic fabrics. The company collaborated with Stella McCartney to reveal the dress pictured in 2017.

As we can see, there are many different innovative materials that are being researched and developed constantly. It gives us optimism that synthetic fabrics may eventually be a thing of the past! Which fabrics would you like to see on our high-street?

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What's the latest in new, innovative fabrics? | ELLISS

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With climate change on everyone's mind, new and sustainable fabrics are being developed all over the world. But, how do you tell which materials are genuine and which are trying to profit from the movement? ELLISS have created this handy article to give you the latest in new and innovative fabrics, read on for more.