In recent years clothing brands have looked to enhance their clothing with technology, thus creating wearable technology. This sector of the clothing market is still growing, but what’s next in digital and fashion?
Apparently, Gap Inc. has created an app, DressingRoom, which utilizes technology to help consumers experience the fit of their clothing line through augmented reality. Their app shows consumers how a garment would look on the size model they choose where the consumer can then choose the size of the garment and see how the fit changes. If a person likes the item then they can choose to make the purchase within the app.
Image source: Gap
This application of technology and shopping may prove to be beneficial, but it’s success will depend on adoption by consumers and, of course, that augmented reality of the product turns out to be realistic once an outfit is worn by the consumer in real life.
With online sales increasing every year over brick and mortar sales, utilizing a technology like this could potentially drive up sales and decrease online returns.
If consumers adopt this way of shopping we could see additional brands creating their own augmented reality shopping apps. Take that a step further and we could see a new platform for shopping emerge that specializes in an augmented reality shopping experience or some of the big marketplace jumping at the chance to enhance the way people shop for clothing through additional technological initiatives.
This could be a new era that we are about to step into with augmented reality for fashion. Who knows, maybe next we’ll be using augmented reality to put together complete ensembles before trying on the clothing at all.
Brian Roizen is the Cofounder and Chief Architect of Feedonomics, a full-service feed optimization platform that optimizes product data for hundreds of channels. He has been featured on numerous podcasts and eCommerce webinars, and regularly contributes to Search Engine Land and other industry-leading blogs. Brian graduated summa cum laude from UCLA with both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering.
