Trend observations, analysis and future predictions since 2005
Category: Fashion
The fashion coaching brand helps us choose our fashion and accessories. It knows the special boutiques. It know where it is fun shopping. It also knows where it is safe to shop (in cities we don’t know for example). It knows what shirt goes well with what pants. It knows what fits you best, considering your figure, your eyes, and your hair. It gives suggestions for accessories. It knows which brands are up-and-coming, which are hot and which are not. Thanks to a fashion coaching brand, you always look good.
Future of Shopping
The future of shopping according to Cisco. It's looks as Science Fiction, but this future is already here (aside from a few minor technology problems such as lighting in the stores).
Future vision by Erwin van Lun
The most important roles of stores is to determine your current measurements. You can order anything you like, from brands, it can be tailored to your wishes, deliverable in every possible color, you can see how it combines with clothes you purchased before and which are still in your wardrobe (i.e. clothes you haven’t thrown away), you can ask what your friends think, and what they bought which will transform shopping to a far more social experience.
Having things on stock is no longer an issue. It will delivered to your home, before you even arrive after traveling back. No more need to carry bags. You can shop from home as easy as shop from any other location in the world. But being with your friends (both physical as virtual), provides a new dimension to the shopping experience.
And obvvously, you’ll be assisted by a brand agent (or a chatbot, dependent on the terminology you prefer), instead of a real human, an artificial character with far more knowledge than a human human could ever possibly have.
This is the future, but only a step into the future.
Related trends
Trying out hairstyles at EZ My Styling
At EZ My Styling, a Japanese company, consumers can upload a photo and then try out different hair styles.
Future vision by Erwin van Lun
Ever more brands are starting to personalize their advice. Eventually we’ll have an exact 3D replica of ourselves and we can try all sorts of possible hairstyles, clothes and accessories. We can make our virtual self walk, exactly how we walk, and then ask our friends how it looks. While you’re lying on the couch. This is an example in that direction.
Related trends
3DFoot scans your feet
Customers of 3dfoot.com can let their feet be scanned in stores. The data will be saved online. When you then come into the online store, you can call on your profile and try the shoes on virtually.
Future vision by Erwin van Lun
Fashion coaching brands advise you on the buying and maintenance of clothing. They do have to know everything about you. The form of your feet, your legs, your body. Which colors suit you, how you walk, how you move. And especially what your friends like. And what you’ll be doing. This is a first, but useful, step in the development of this type of brand.
Related trends
Kohls goes from virtual to real clothing
The American store chain Kohls, with 975 physical locations, launched a new line that's only for sale on Stardoll.com, a virtual meeting place for teenagers. Using Stardollars they can buy virtual clothes. In the first sixteen days the virtual shop attracted 2.2 million visitors and sold 1.8 million items. Goal is to familiarize kids with the clothes Kohl sells and seduce them to come into the physical store to buy clothes there.
Future vision by Erwin van Lun
Where the virtual world seems more and more really, eventually it’s all about clothing in the real world with it’s rich sensory experiences. By wearing our clothing virtually first people can give their uncertainty about their looks a place. If the environment approves the next step can be taking. Kolhs gets precisely how this works.
H M produces consumer design
An outfit designed by a player of The Sims 2 is now available in almost 1,000 H&M stores world-wide. The clothes are the result of a design contest in which all Sims-players could take part. The context involved designed a piece of clothing based on the style of H&M. The uploaded creations could then be seen in six virtual fashion shows. Entries by at least 1,000 designers were judged by over 100,000 people. It generated around 500 million impressions. The winning design is recognizable in H&M stores by a special The Sims 2 label and brand.
Future vision by Erwin van Lun
Brands facilitate the design of a product, like they borrow their right to exist from the facilitation of consumers, in their lives. A brand is, such as it were, a huge group of people of which the most active people involve themselves full-time, sometimes even longer. These people are serving the community. Every part of what they do has to add value to the life of the consumer. H&M understands how this process works and is taking leaps in the brand coming out, the process in which traditional brands reinvent themselves.
Related trends
Boezoe searches through children’s clothes
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.
Future vision by Erwin van Lun
Completeness is what the formation of coaching brands is about in 2008: put everything in one place for me. Currently Boezoe is living off advertisements, but soon it’ll get a percentage of a sale or work with a subscription model. Boezoe won’t just be able to find anything, but it’ll also know what you’ve bought previously. If you then want to know what’s in in your child’s class and where you can get it for a nice price on top of that, Boezoe will be able to help you. It’s getting more and more personal, getting more and more added value. That’s what this evolution is about.
Related trends
Spot-A-Shop guides you past fun stores
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.
Future vision by Erwin van Lun
This is how fashion coaching brands come to life. These guide you in your choice of clothes, accessories and stores. It’ll begin at the end of this decade with a complete database of all addresses. This type of brand can make a long-term profit through a subscription model, asking money for advice, or by asking entrepreneurs for a contribution. That has to be made crystal clear for the consumer. That’ll right itself, however, as if they give partial advice such a brand would soon be finished.
Isvou: I am looking for something like this, do you have that?
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 fashion coaching 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’s virtual fitting room
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.
Otto introduces life style agent
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.
Renting out your stuff through Zilok
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 home coaching brand, our fashion coaching brand and other coaching 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.
Related trends
Virtually fitting glasses with Megane Top
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 fashion coaching 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: have your avatar try your clothes
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. Fashion coaching 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.
Scan your body and find your brands
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 fashion coaching brands. Once they also start recording our skin structure, eyes, hair and lifestyle, then we can get real personal fashion advice. Video clip below.