Category: Fashion

Boezoe (Dutch) searches through all Dutch webshops for used and new children's clothes. All you have to do is tell it what you're looking for and you'll see the results. Boezoe invites webshops to participate to be as complete as possible.

On Spot-a-shop.nl users can compose their own shopping route past the best shopping addresses in the Netherlands, print it and take it along into town. This information can then be shared with friends. Users and retailers can add stores. Entrepreneurs can also make their own page and add their company to the Spot-A-Shop database.

Isvou is a Chinese visual search engine. If you are looking for a purse that looks like one you have seen before, you can upload a picture, after which automatically a selection of similar purses is shown, which can all be ordered directly (cw). Although this seems very advanced, it really only is the beginning. Soon we will walk in the street, point to something we like, and directly ask our personal fashion brand if we can get something like that. We will then get the possibilities presented to us through our ear plug, as well as projected in our glasses, and are directly advised about the combination with other clothes we own. Uploading and clicking then will seem so old-fashioned. Visual searching is a small step in that direction.

H&M introduces: a virtual fitting room. In this room you can put together an avatar in underwear, including shape, weight, and age. If the BMI (Body Mass Index) is not right (too low for a human body), this is corrected automatically. The avatar then can be dressed. You can not order the clothes yet (vl).

In a next step the clothes (of course) can be ordered, and it won’t stop there. Then the next step is getting advice. For example on what fits our shape, not just by style but also by color. After that, we will be able to take this virtual adviser to the shop, who then appears in the mirrors. While we are shopping, we can directly see what it looks like when we put it on, and we get advice. In the long run, we will trust this virtual adviser more than a real sales person in the shop.

But it still doesn’t stop here: later our weight will be connected to our bath room scale, we take our avatar to other stores, and we will get advice on how to combine new clothes with the clothes we already have in our wardrobes. To then get advice on cleaning and maintenance of these clothes. But this will take a couple of years.

And earlier or later, even the maintenance will be taken care of for us. Then we just have to toss our clothes in a corner, and after a certain amount of time we will find it in our wardrobe. Robots fold our laundry and put it away. To then have the right outfit ready for us in the morning, exactly right for the activities of the day. Exactly like mom used to do that when we were kids. We still have the possibility to choose ourselves, but we just don’t feel like it. There are so many other things we want to do. This is material for pamper planet, material for 2050.

Dutch mail order company Otto introduced its Life Style Agent. This small software program nestles in the task bar and continuously shows new offers in the area of lifestyle, fashion, and living. Not just of Otto, but of all kinds of sources (cc, Dutch). Brands are becoming pro-active. They continuously watch the world for us, and select exactly what we want. The brands who know us best, will offer us the most relevant products and information. These brands we will love most. This is a small step in that direction.

Through Zilok consumers can rent out their own stuff, or rent things from other people (dc, Dutch). In the time in which information was scarce, publishers could promote companies through advertisements, billboards, and commercials. Companies that could develop a core competence like rentals. Very often however, it is perfect to borrow something from a friend, or a friend-of-a-friend, but we don’t have much knowledge of the things our friends have. This information slowly becomes available. Now by consciously posting it to a website. In the future we will have an inventory list of all our belongings, which we share with our insurance company, our personal home brand, our personal fashion brand and other personal brands, and even with our friends (and friends of friends). The reputation of the individual then becomes important, like it is in our daily lives. If you lend something to somebody, most people want to get it back (in good shape), but not everybody has the same ideas about this. People who share the same standards will connect to each other. Thus the virtual world more and more resembles the physical world.

Through Japanese Megane Top you can fit glasses with your mobile phone (ab). Now glasses, in the future all kinds of clothes. If you then see somebody wearing a jacket, shoes, or skirt you really like, you just point your mobile phone at it. Your personal fashion brand then appears, who estimates if these clothes will look good on you, asks what color you would like, gives advice about combining these clothes with your existing ones, can say if you can get it somewhere in the neighborhood, and can directly reserve it for you, or order it and have it delivered at your doorstep if you like. This development is part of that.

iFashion is a virtual fashion store from the Shinsegae chain. At the iFashion site you can create your own avatar with your precise measures, have it try on your clothes online, and order them tailor-made. And not just that: the precise measures of your avatar can be stored on a personal card you can use as a standard for ordering clothes, for example through your mobile phone or through the computer (mf, Dutch). And thus the fashion retail branch is also taking new steps. Now you still have to measure yourself, later there will be all kinds of businesses in shopping streets who, on a commercial basis, will take your measurements and give you color and style advice. They will get a percentage over the clothes you buy, or you just pay a price for the service. Personal fashion brands, iFashion might develop to be one, will help you anywhere in the world with new fashion advice, based on your earlier purchases, your personal profile, what you are going to do, where you are, what budget you have, and, very important, what your friends think of it. This is a big step in that direction.

Through Intellifit’s newest scanner we can now get automated brand advice. You are in a clothing shop, you step in a scanner (with all your clothes on), you push a button, step out of the scanner and your advice is right there. With 200.000 measuring points the form of your body has been determined, right through all your clothes. Your sizes are printed on a small card (via fc). This is the starting point for personal fashion brands. Once they also start recording our skin structure, eyes, hair and lifestyle, then we can get real personal fashion advice. Video clip below.