It goes without saying that there is a problem with clothing and overconsumption.
According to Dr. Jennifer Baumgartner, clinical psychologist, and author of the book, You Are What You Wear, most of us wear a mere 20% of our wardrobes 80% of the time. The reasons behind this statistic are many: we buy clothing that is not suited to our body shape, or complexion, we do not have access to a personal stylist, we impulse buy to keep pace with the flurry of micro-trends. The result is singular – we’re stuck with a closet that we do not love.
Future Fashion Factory member Aistetic is tackling this challenge. A B2B software platform, Aistetic uses state of art technology to help customers make informed purchase decisions. With world-class founders from leading academic institutions, Aistetic uses a combination of computer vision and deep learning technology to enable highly accurate measurements via 3D body scans, thereby revolutionizing users’ shopping experience.
By working with Future Fashion Factory and Dr Raheleh Jafari, Academic Fellow in Artificial Intelligence Technology in Fashion Design at the University of Leeds, Aistetic was able to develop further features to its service by way of an AI style prototype. This prototype has been developed to use AI to capture preferences from shoppers and recommend garments that meet the preferences of the user.
How does it work?
Preferences are complex and emotive, and as such, the collaborative project was able to leverage Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Computer Vision (CV) algorithms to elicit and respond to these nuanced preferences. Aistetic was able to prototype the AI system to implement both text and computer vision-based analysis to reproduce the interactivity and personalisation of real-world style recommendations.
Working in collaboration with AVIE, a luxury womenswear brand that also sits within the FFF network, Aistetic was able to prototype AI driven style conversations, where the user can buy clothing that is tailored to their own tastes and bodies.
As the Founder of AVIE, I am proud to have collaborated with Aistetic to deliver ground-breaking technology that enhances the online shopping experience and promotes sustainable fashion development.
Sonya Bachra-Byrne, Founder and Managing Director, AVIE
Impacts for Aistetic and Wider Industry
Aistetic’s user tested prototype is usable as a web application and is being promoted as an additional ‘grey label’ module as part of its service. In addition, Aistetic is currently commercialising its first product module, a 3D reconstruction and measurement service from smartphones that enables higher online conversion, lower returns and inventory for online brands and retailers.
The Future Fashion Factory grant enabled us to draw on world class expertise at the University of Leeds in computer vision, natural language processing and fashion and textiles – we were able to prototype AI driven style conversations, to help customers make more informed purchase decisions.
Duncan McKay, CEO, Aistetic
On a macro level, this project focused on actionable impacts – to reduce clothing waste, reduce returns, and extend garment lifetimes through personalised style recommendations. When the wider fashion industry can reduce the likelihood of an item being purchased then returned, it can begin to tackle the 300,000 tonnes of clothing that ends up in household bins every year in the UK. Moreover, extending the life of clothing by an extra nine months can reduce carbon, waste, and water footprints by around 20-30% each (Source: Fixing fashion- Environmental Audit Committee-(EAC)- Report-2019).
By working with Aistetic we developed an AI style prototype through the smart use of chatbots for online retailers that captures preferences from shoppers and recommends a series of garments that both meet the preferences of the user and follow style principles to ensure that the garments flatter that individual
Dr Raheleh Jafari, University Academic Fellow in Artificial Intelligence Technology in Fashion Design at the University of Leeds.
