Technology and fashion, two sectors that seem to have nothing in common, instead technology has had a great impact on fashion and making fashion.
Here are some technologies that have changed fashion.
- CAD programs: Hallowed to reduce the spaces used in the fashion industry. To make a pattern, you needed large boards, rulers, and squares. Now with programs such as Inkscape,Seamly you just need a PC. Inkscape is an open-source CAD program, open to users who can help improve its performance, the same applies to Seamly. Pro2CAD instead is paid and designed only for Windows.
- Applications Even the design of fashion sketches have gone from manual to digital with applications such as Prêt à Template with which you can draw on ready-made sketches and pass the design via email to the model maker.
POLYVORE: An application that I recommend for “fashion beginners”, available for both Android and iOS because it creates outfits by mixing the items sold by the main online stores, perfect because it combines the love for fashion and online shopping, outfits created are basic, but always perfect, for those who are always in a hurry and do not want to make a mistake with outfits for a special occasion.
STYLEBOOK: Invented by a former Vogue intern, it will help you dress up according to the season and the event you have to attend, just upload photos of your wardrobe, to make a database available to the application to consult and organize according to needs. Very useful because it becomes a sort of catalog of your wardrobe, sorted by color and fabric, to always carry with you and view when you go shopping, so it will never happen again to forget those lovely trousers at the bottom of the wardrobe to discover, at home, to have bought an identical one.
- 3D Printer The use of 3D printers has given a strong impetus to the fashion industry since it enables the realization of shapes and patterns are impossible to create with traditional manufacturing techniques, due to the 3D printing head is processed with software and sent to the machine which makes it real immediately, eliminating multiple steps, from cutting to packaging.
- The use of the Internet of Things (IoT): used to make the single item of clothing a means of communication between retailer and consumer, as well as helping the latter to understand how the product itself is made and can be customized.
- Big data and Artificial Intelligence: true marketing revolution of the second millennium, Big data analysis, and artificial intelligence systems, especially when combined, can improve both customer service and provide them with an experience that is always innovative and as close as possible to specific needs. of the customer, even noting the urgency in customer requests based on the tone of voice, the language used, and the emotion expressed during customer service calls, both bring a distinct advantage to the brand. Not only that: on the customer’s side: they can also allow him to subject his body or face to analysis to obtain precise answers on clothes, make-up, accessories, or other, more suited to his physiognomy; on the brand side, they can be very useful allies in the elaboration and programming of market strategies, production processes and analysis of results, ensuring a much shorter response time to critical situations than traditional methods.
- Augmented reality (so-called Augmented Reality, or AR): the advent of AR has, in fact, made it possible to create real digital dressing rooms, which allow, by means of a simple camera, to view the product ( on a mannequin or on oneself), helping the customer who is too busy or too shy to choose the most suitable solution for him in the comfort of his home and / or office and obtaining, in return, greater loyalty and satisfaction of the same, which feels fully guided and involved in the product selection process. The customer will have fewer problems in trying on a garment, especially when it comes to t-shirts or shirts (of which often the size does not vary from garment to garment unlike trousers) just use the application or the virtual mirror present in the store or in the store application.
These are brand extension or co-branding marketing strategies, which exploit today’s technologies, starting from the Internet of Things to get to augmented reality, to modify the traditional interaction with the customer, and make the experience with the brand unique and differentiated. starting from the message that the company wants to spread (by means of multiple communication channels, especially social media, a true bulwark of fashion 4.0, and of subjects, belonging to them, specifically chosen to represent the ideal image of the customer of a certain brand), phase in which the user assumes a pre-eminently passive position, up to the personalization of the real shopping experience, which instead places the user in a position of active dominance with real use of technology at the consumer service, and not vice versa.
So that users feel included, understood, and fully satisfied, being able to interact with the brand, experiencing custom-made experiences based on their needs, feeling they can in some way also influence the choices of the brand they are most affiliated with. The satisfaction deriving from such an experience determines in turn, in a customer-customer and no longer brand-customer chain, the voluntary advertising of the product, and the true global success of the brand, with enormous benefits for sales.
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