2894 Views
What you wear says a lot about you, without requiring you to speak a word. Someone dressed to the nines will always attract more attention, irrespective of gender, race, color, and religion. It is not necessarily important to a part of the fashion industry to dress up and present the best version of you to the world. How you dress up is how you are setting out in this world, it can often be the butterfly effect that can kick start a wave of events to lead you to your destiny.
In today’s world, fashion has become a powerful tool of self-expression not just for fashion icons but also artists and even for the masses. The fashion industry is propelled by an incredibly growing demand for new trends that don’t just bedeck the runways but also appeal to the most well-aware generation of fashion lovers ever.
Millennials and Zillenials, two of the generations that received maximum exposure to technological advancements growing up, together form a major portion of the target audience for the fashion biz; both of them are more informed, more expressive, and more demanding. They know about the latest trends and are eager to invest in clothes, shoes, accessories that can help them stand out and can complement their personality.
In fact, it’s no more just about celebrity fashion, people today are eager to get their hands on runway fashion. No more tie on tank tops and chunky crystal bracelets, the current cohort of buyers follows what’s in Vogue, quite literally! Fashion magazines like Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue were once limited to the elites but with digital media, these journals find a huge amount of followers and readers online.
This has led to an increase in the pressure on retail brands, who are competing with each other both offline and online. They are expected to not just innovate when it comes to design but also offer quality while pricing the offerings competitively. It’s not easy to accomplish these tasks all at once, which is why businesses in the fashion world are now heavily depending on technologies like artificial intelligence.
Artificial Intelligence – Powering The Fashion Industry
Varied applications of artificial intelligence in our day to day lives have made it an integral part of our world. This technology took over various segments of the business world sooner than anticipated and its benefits have powered enterprises at various levels. In the fashion industry, AI has turned out to be an incredible advancement; let’s take a look at how it is contributing to the world of ever-changing trends.
Now, a lot of people would say that how can you automate the operations of an industry that is entirely based on human creativity and if you believe the same then here is what you need to know. This industry has access to some of the biggest data sets in the business world with deep market and consumer insights. AI Promises to be a powerful competitive edge when coupled with creativity that businesses in the fashion domain already possess.
The application of artificial intelligence in the fashion realm is to take away the more mundane tasks from the hands of designers, marketers, and merchants. This, naturally, will lead to more focus on creativity and will aid businesses in concentrating on higher-value decisions. AI can never become a fashion designer for your business but it can significantly contribute to certain tasks performed by him/her, thus enhancing the overall productivity.
Enhancing Productivity
Businesses in the fashion domain can ameliorate some processes to generate better profits. The application of artificial intelligence in such processes can not only boost the speed but also lower the operational cost while enhancing flexibility at various stages. This technology can also aid in various areas including merchandising, forecasting, production, capacity planning, and delivery. AI can also help businesses accelerate product availability and order fulfillment.
Enhancing Creativity
Apart from boosting productivity, the application of artificial intelligence can also contribute to the creative process of designing and related tasks. Numerous enterprises in the fashion designing industry are resorting to the efficiency of AI in augmenting their designing and product development skills. Sifting through the consumer data swiftly, artificial intelligence can aid in suggesting product features that consumers will most likely prefer.
AI-Powered Fashion
Amazon is one of the leading e-commerce giants known for making online shopping swifter and smarter. The company is about to launch an AI-powered clothing designer that will be based on advanced algorithms to analyze as well as replicate popular styles. This system will crunch and analyze data at a lightning speed to develop designs as per the previous preferences of customers.
Bringing the artificial intelligence to India’s fashion industry, designers Shane and Falguni Peacock are deploying this technology to assess as many as 60, 000 couture images from runways all across the globe. Their aim is to actually predict the future of fashion with the aid of trends that wowed fashion lovers for a long time and with the trends that kept coming back in different years and seasons.
Stitch Fix, a startup hustling in the competitive fashion realm is another major example of AI application. Instead of depending on traditional mood boards, the designers at Stitch Fix are AI-driven when it comes to the creative process. A customized artificial intelligence system goes through a massive database of customer behavior insights and changing trends to create a combination of designs that are more likely to succeed in the market. The system of Stitch Fix is capable of going through as many as 30 million combinations to handpick items that can match the taste, requirement, and budget of customers.
Getting Closer To The Customers
A leading name in the industry, Tommy Hilfiger is deploying a chatbot to communicate with potential customers. The AI-powered bot not only manages live conversations but also offers answers via a huge database of FAQs and can customize the content for potential customers. This is a huge step for businesses in this industry, as this technology can automate customer support to an extent, even though the need for physical agents will not cease to exist.
However, the potential of this technology isn’t confined to transforming the online service experience, it can also power offline engagement at retail stores. AI and IoT AKA the Internet of Things with the aid of some sensors can assist customers at physical stores and when we talk about the potential of this technology, the sky is the limit. Whether we talk about digital mirrors at Farfetch’s Store or any other advancement, AI integration offers a whole buffet of possibilities to the businesses in the fashion realm.
Technologies like AI hold the power to change the way fashion businesses interact with customers. Leading enterprises in the fashion realm are already benefiting from this technology, as they are able to engage customers in a better way. Gathering better customer insight from rich databases and offering advantages like dynamic pricing, enhanced customer relationship management, and product recommendations, AI is all set to change the way fashion businesses operate.
In the coming years, we might be able to witness new developments in this domain and soon there will be a day when AI integration will power every business operating in the fashion realm.
