This is the transcript from a session recorded at PI Apparel New York 2023. The full video can be viewed here.
Hi, everyone. Thank you for coming in. Today, we're going to be talking about the power of virtual trials and gamification in online shopping. My name is Karina Ochoa de Baker. I am a Fashion technologist and also digital fashion lecturer. A little bit of my work. I love digital fashion. I love fashion. I love creating. I love using basically every single software out there.
I want to learn that. And I want to do beautiful things, but I want to do them sustainable. And that's what, for me, virtual try on is very, very important. This is my experience back in Colombia. I've been teaching since 2021 and we have now two levels of digital fashion, and my students have gone into the workforce. Also, the principal sustainability on what digital transformation can do for the industry.
This is some of the projects and in these projects I done mostly in Colombia, I have learned a lot about how the public perception, digital fashion in different environments through air, through VR, through the creation of these digital works that talk about fashion. I have also created like partnerships with companies like zero ten that are air solutions. So I think I can have a good perception about how to build digital fashion, how people perceive it, how people shop at, but also how people want to experience that.
I want you to think about this question, questions I have right here. When was the last time you bought something at a store? Right? Does any one of you you can like raise your heart if you still shop, then something like the actual stores. They often ask What percentage of your wardrobe have you bought online? Is most of it now?
Yeah, I mean it to even though like I travel a lot, but I travel online too, and I just satisfy with the feet of your clothing are, you know, why do you buy two sizes and then return one right. We are guilty of that. Not good. Not good at all. And do we actually, for the ones in here that go to the actual store, do you trust the mirroring?
You go alone, you try on clothing, you're like, I look amazing. Maybe your high bar because you are in the store, but then you, like, leave and then you're going to go to your thing. You try it on on. Maybe it's not the thing for the actual event or the date, right? Happens to me, especially because I don't know what I look like from behind.
I don't know if like my jeans are pulling, especially here in the bag. Happens all the time. So what are the solutions for these problems? For me, the solution can always be found in technology. This is some stats from Google and a statistic. 59% of online shoppers, they feel dissatisfied with the clothing that buy because it looks different how it did in the model that they saw online.
42% of online shoppers don't feel represented by models the brand uses to showcase this products. Right? See all the gorgeous people? They're super tall. Some brands don't even put what sizes the models are wearing, which I'm like, Can you please tell me because she is wearing an oversize garment, but this garment doesn't say oversize and they want it happens.
And around 76% of adults in USA, they buy online. We are right there. E-commerce returns rate can be 2 to 3 times higher than when you buy something at the actual store. The average e-commerce returns right, are around 20 to 30%. And these these numbers, they keep increasing, especially since the pandemic when all the actual food, the room, clothes, we were forced to start buying three slices, two slices, get a trip to the house, put it on and then return it.
And then all the stores, like the brands, they have to accommodate. And they actually had to have like free return policies. All of these is hurting the brands and it's hurting the environment. These are ads up to around 761 billion. So merchandise that is going to be returned to the stores is going to end up in the stores or a warehouse.
And what happens to that unsold inventory? It gets sold at a discount price, which is basically what Lee is trying to make up for our losses. It gets donated. Maybe we are like a good brand sustainable that we're trying to do the good thing or it gets destroy and we all see and all those horribles headlines, right? And we all seen in the news my linking faith is full of ad all the clothes that we can see from the satellites in Chile.
We don't want to be that industry. And we actually have solutions and technology that can help us improve. Visual Troyan is one of those, and it provides a more engaging and immersing shopping experience for customers while reducing our returns and the waste. Everyone knows this, right? Because I love it. I think I didn't know I wanted to be a fashion designer when I was younger, by the way, like two moments in my life.
I'm like, of course I like fashion tech. This is one of those. I was like, How do they did this? And like, when can I have it? Well, now we can, right? And the older I don't know if you the only Barbie feeling like to play with was the Barbie design with me the how like this you can print your clothes and it's basically like brown sweater club but like back in the day in the nineties and my older sister got it and I stole it from her.
I love it. So how does video work? And this is just like my rundown because we've seen many solutions and we're going to work like walk through them in the meantime. But this is in average how it works. It's just like the step by step on the user will provide an image or videos of themselves and this can be done to your phone.
You can have like a massive counter at the start or seen those two. And then the system will analyze the shape of your body and they will create a 3D body match. Then we also have in our system database that dashboard will have all the clothing from the company and then it will basically then 3D model the 3D garment, put it on simulated so it can accommodate to your actual body.
And we have a like in all the sizes, all the database, the colors. Then you can select these and interact with these output, which is a visual output of how the garment will look on you. So you can actually like spin it around, see it from the back and see the genius is in on the back below. Priyanka also allowed you on the air.
Technology will give you a size recommendation, which is great because then you can decide, okay, this is in my body proportions. I can try these sizes and you can actually see how I looked. And then they can also give you recommendations of other pieces you can part with your price. I think we've all seen Google in the news in the past two weeks, right, with AI generated models, which in my opinion is great because it solves that problem where we don't see as represented in the models on the web stars, but doesn't account for actual fit.
So it's kind of like prompting us to buy something that we think they will look better on us based on that image. But we're still not at the point that I can say, okay, does this size and I don't have to buy two sizes to make sure if it's but they have per I threw out this amazing solution and they can also, as I said, recommend pairing of other garments to make them look and they can give you a size recommendation.
This is kind of what it looks like. So you will have your image or the image of the model. You will have the image of the garment and then basically superimpose like Photoshop one and top of the other. And then you have the output and a matter of seconds. And this is kind of what it looks like. Again, it can be you or it can be a model, as I say, are some of these solutions.
You can put your measurement like your height, your weight, and they give you like a little bit more of accuracy. So we start to see them with the development of tech, more and more solutions. Some different companies, some working on it give us different options. Still, I think I always like, like to think as the consumer and the end user is like, is this actually going to give me the information I need to buy that one garment?
I actually one in the size that is going to fit me. So this is more of my favorite, which is a really accurate detail and which I'll try on where we digitize all the pieces of a company and then you'll have your blogs, right? And if you're already here, you probably hear it in all the other talks, how all this software solo browser with so many more can aid you in the solutions and you can even help them in a great PLM system.
You can see them in all your colors, size, run and so on. And in this part it's very important to consider that that transformation with digital tools has to be done across all departments because we need to make sure. And Christian was talking about that yesterday in the morning talk that the technical designers understand how to communicate with the digital designers and build these models that are accurate to the ones that are ending up in the store and different process or meet up if we're going to put this garment individually story, just like with our model where we're going to do a lookbook, it has to be a style and photographs and render for the website and then a garment that is going for production has to has all the specs, measurement details that the manufacturers are going understand. And 3D technology allows us to do that. And on top of that, at the end, we can take these virtual garments and put them in our videos. So here you can see for it are these are 3D virtual try on garments.
The important part is that you need to have body mass of the user body. So again, many solutions to get to this point, but always to start thinking how can we make this process seamless and easy for the end user? Because not every single story around the world can have a massive scanner, right? And can they have massive scanners across my 300 stores in the world?
Yeah, it's complicated. We have amazing technology just right here. This phone I bought the 13 last year because he has a LIDAR scanner. So it allows me to do like many, many things. We already, like have all this technology in our hands. So it's about awesome companies to start thinking how we can create these experiences. My consumer is already shopping on the phone, how I allow them to do virtual try on from the phone as well so you can create a good representation of your body in 3D.
You will have your garments created as well, and then you can put everything together with a great solution and try on the garments. And then we can also like power these a little bit more with air, right? Because it's gray. I'm seeing this person, little tiny person in my phone, in my computer, but it's a little we getting them counting like situations.
So ideally, the great thing will be to get to thank you, to get into the air moment that I can actually take a video and spin around and see how I look, see actually how it moves. I will say that the technology is not there yet. Snapchat has great solutions, but if you have tried, you see that the simulation of the fabric doesn't move.
Great. And I don't think if you're not an enthusiast, as I am, you might get a little deterred actually from life. But we are going to get there and it's important. The brands, designers and everyone in the industry is start understanding what's happening, because digitizing all these garments takes some time. I want you guys to know about Gans if you don't know already.
They are generative error, sorry, English generative, adversarial, adversarial networks, and these little is our type of A.I.. And the way it works is we can see it in this picture is quite simple. Similar to the Google Solution and the other AI solutions. You can see the garment and you can you have your model and you superimpose those things and then it's kind of taken in accountability, not only the picture of the model but all the environments.
So it's like very, very powerful and it can give us a great output. So if you see in the second image, you can actually have a model walk in and the garment will move with that. So it's not really, but AI is really, really powerful and molds and grows really, really quick. So we're going to get there very, very fast.
There is many papers out there and I suggest you guys have like keep up with the network on LinkedIn because I always see all the good news in there. There's also gains. I don't know. I found actually this one on LinkedIn and I thought it was amazing how they were able to modify the pose and also the land and customize garments just with a click of a button.
And now think about the applications where these embarrassments dry up. Quite impressive right? Okay, so modify the lens click of a button. I was definitely amazed by it. And now let's get to the part of my talk when I told you about gaming as well, because I am not a gamer. Full disclosure. Not really. But I do love technology in all the ways and I mean, we probably all have in some sort of gaming in our phone and we really like that we don't delete and these apps keep bringing us back like, you know, we interact with phones and even if we think about social media now, like gamified platforms, they like keep us bringing us back, They have like basically you have to see three things. You get little horizontal links and all of them make us happy. Like again, Will, if you're like getting some points. So I think we we'll the fashion industry needs to take a few points and a few notes from their books, especially with you exercise. It's kind of fun because I'm a fashion designer and the designer thing kind of carries across platforms because when I see something that doesn't look right, I'm a little bit like an right.
Or if you download an app, I'm an app and it doesn't work, you'd like automatically delete it or the words. If I'm trying to buy something and it just doesn't allow me to spend the money I hardly earning to buy these things, you get upset and you're like, I'm never buying from this brand again. So how do we integrate not only the creation of all these garments, make a great platform, partner with great vendors to bring these experiences to our users, But in our own platforms, how we create the best experiences for them.
I'm sorry. And this pyramid right here is so that you can see at the top what they use are curious the most about, yes, it has to work. It has to be reliable, of course, but it has to be convenient, enjoyable and significant for the tools. These are three key points that I think are very important in video game design.
On the ugly side, video games are multi-sensory experiences involving players, both physically on presence screens or buttons and mentally. So I think that's very important. Like what do we place a button, how we press and present this to our users, the colors we use, transitions. So you also have the essential purpose of bringing players back into the game, using elements such as Progress Bars, badges and other counters that let the player know that there is more to be done.
And isn't that what we all want for our only stores? We want them to come back, we want them to interact, we want them to browse through the stores. And if I had to try on in my web store, I wanted to try everything because that that also will allow me sorry and also will allow me to understand what the user wants if they're willing to see it in their own bodies in 3D, for example, I will know what they are more likely to buy next season.
That's why you access minors must ensure that the player don't get frustrated by badly is playing games. And that's what I was going. We need to make sure and these are very, very new technologies. I have seen brands and started to put out there that they are integrating better to try on. But sometimes I go to the platforms and I don't know where to find this.
Of course I'm curious, this is my job. But how are they explaining this to the average user? How are you letting your consumers know that you actually have this feature in your website? Right. And he said seamless. That's really, really work. What you put up there just for hype and getting in the news. This is a very simple image, but if I have these two squares in front of me, I will immediately will want to fix them right?
So something as simple as these and yes, it bothers me because maybe I am OCD, I don't know, but I think it bothers everyone to do. They see too complicated for the person to understand? Well, simplify these experiences, make them seamless for people to understand because virtual trial is a new concept and we need to make sure that the user wants to use this experience, but also understands that is going to serve them a purpose.
And I think we all want to be sustainable. We start seeing some solutions and how they look a lot like video games, right? The solutions need to be like pleasing to the eye, but easily understandable. I think the international language is definitely not right, but we all know how to communicate with these gestures in our phone and I start thinking there is a language to that.
There is a level of communication that everyone understands, especially if you are like a three year old, because they love to play in the phones and they know how to do all these things already. So we need to start understanding what is easy, how do we move all these materials? How is the user? If I have different colors, are they going to click to put different materials over here?
If I put this avatar without any indication, are people going to try to spin it already? Right? Do I have to have a assistance which for your website you do, but you have to when you hover over it has to say basically what the bottom of this. So all the screens we have to consider across the process when we want to implement it as well, try on.
Technology also will be inclusive as we want to be green. We also need to be inclusive. And I don't think we're in the moment in history that we can pretend we don't know. So the people developing the technology needs to know the face and to apply it. The brands need to make sure that their providers of technology understand that we need a different range of skin tones, right?
We all need to be able to see our representation because we see it from Google. We see different brands wanting to have a diverse selection of models, and that if you don't have that, people won't want to buy due to things because they don't see themselves represented. We cannot see themselves wearing the clothes of your companies. And we also not only have these two kinds of body, you know, perfect female, perfect male, that is plenty in between.
I really like this squad because BTR is a lot for what portals. But also we start seeing that people want to wear or try digital fashion at the start and they want to wear digital fashion out in the open. Like those videos do show. In the beginning on this woman, I follow her eating Instagram. She sells like our type clothing.
That is amazing. And as I said, I like I love Thrifting, but you say I buy online and in the allocation that I leave the house, I want the one that's shopping to be a whole experience, right? We don't leave the house or we're not going to not buy online. That is very convenient just to go to a regular store.
And these technologies, if we implement that in our storefronts, in our Windows displays, they can be really amazing and engaging for the user. This is an example of Sierra ten in the Koch flagship store here in Soho and the response of people in the streets where they just pass by and saw it in the window. Everyone was amazed by it and what it can do.
And so how engaging the technology not only helps you be more sustainable, but really engages you with the product. And what the company is, one is for the stores is to bring that foot traffic into the store and convert that in, sells. And then this one really amazed me is from Cartier. They create the looking glass project and at some of their select stores they have basically this machine.
You take one of the rings, find your size, it has a little truck here on the top, and then you can just see yourself wearing all their collection in all the colors. Jewelry is expensive, right? And sometimes in the stores, they don't have all the colors, all the sizes or they don't have all the collection. And that also happens in fashion.
But with virtual try on, you can actually offer the whole range of colors, maybe some exclusive at your stores. So I think this project is really amazing. It actually works with gangs and really, really I mean, I'm not going to I don't have enough time to explain it, but it's so amazing because it can take the account and the skin tone the whole environment and produce an image using artificial intelligence of your hand wearing all this collection.
And I remember the director of the Innovation Department of Cartier, I went through his stock and he say was so amazing to see people because they were like looking at their hand. And then they did this and they forgot that they were using that technology. And I think that's the end goal for all of us, for people to enter to our Web stores to have these experiences in the stores.
And it is seamless. You forget the technology. It's there. And I want to leave you with this quote from Sally Young from Epic Games. She says, The future of retail is play. And I think this can. Thank you, everyone. And if anyone have any questions, please feel free to raise your hand for virtual try on experiences to have all of the 3D garments and being able to do that.
Do you think that there are good solutions out there for like taking an image and overlaying it? So like as a midpoint, do you think that's like a good progression to like work towards or do you think it's not worth that step out? Let me go back to the beginning and I mean, this is very much my opinion and thing.
I think is very important to combine it because area is so fast and I run through the process of doing all the stands in my pipeline as a technologist like this and all the software is doing everything manually and they get to points and garments are very complex, have many variations. There is still like even the education for 3D is not in most of the schools around the world.
There is a big, big need for people that knows how to use all these softwares. So it's hard to build as many 3D assets as there is clothes right? AI is absorbing so, so fast and I cannot wait until I can texture a whole garment just with air. So I don't have to do with money. I don't have to play you days and magazines and do high political Pollyanna, all these things because it's a lot.
And imagine doing that for every single garment. A store that has 2000 styles is when I put in the web page. So I think it has to be a combination of bold. It has to be the 3D mesh. I think it needs to be done with it. Parts with it, with work, with all these solutions, because it will allow you to actually see.
And they have the clock simulation, right? I know how the physics of these fabrics behave, so I can see if is the tension like even inside this software you can see, okay, it's pulling here. I have tension here and then you will be able to use. So imagine. See that? And they say, okay, this is going to be tiny, right?
So for that 3D, for texturing, for maybe size recommendation and later on for costume garment creation, I think is key on AI with gowns is you can have an output of video and images. So it's not a 3D scene that you're seeing the output of artificial intelligence at the moment, these images and videos. So it is a combination of both.
What I think like we really need to start investigating like around everything and see how we combine this to make the best solution.
Hello. I have a question. If my company is suffering with this process, what should be the first step? The first step is start training your team so that they can your design team, technical team so that they can digitalize all your garments. You have to have a block of 3D garments. I think that's a great a great first step.
Also have an innovation and technology department. I think that's key because this technology is moving so, so fast. We have to be like every single day on top of what's happening on how can I implement a faster, better solution for my end user. Thank you. Do you have a question? hi. What recommendations do you have for consumer adoption of VTO?
I think it has to be. I mean, at this moment we do have to hype it. Then we have to introduce it like get your PR team on end and do campaigns like make it fun, like virtual Try on digital transformation sustainability. It doesn't have to be boring. You know, show the consumers launch a product like make it interested.
I like interesting for them but at the same time make it seem less like make sure it works great, make sure it's ready to be out in the market because it's very frustrating. Like if you hyped all the users, they go on to try it and then they can, right? So those two things I also will there be outsources, meaning if I don't have like a big i.t in my company, can I send this jacket to an outsource for them to do everything for me.
Yes. So in here there is so many vendors, right, that they offer a technology. So I have seen people that digitize the garment. So if you cannot find your team, I mean you other things have to train some designer so that they know how to receive all the garments. But you can send the development of 3D samples to some of these vendors.
There is so many companies nowadays that do that, so you have to look for them for the good ones and make sure you are getting your digital product looks up to the standards of the physical ones, right? And then there is also vendors that do virtual try on the duplex system that will integrate both. Yeah, and there is consultancy agencies that will help you put all of those things together as well.
Yeah, I think that is a few. Hi, my question is with the trends that you're seeing in the uptake of Vito, what do you think in your opinion is like a realistic timeline for like the uptake to be large enough to actually overtake the like sustainability or the earth impacts of online shopping? I mean, it depends of how fast we're able to implement it.
I think there are solutions and we see them all in the market. The fact that Google has done approaches that were said is something that we can start thinking how we implement this, for example, in Shopify, right? But it's probably just a plug in. So down along, if we allow the users to have better information of what they want to buy, they will like not by seven sizes or for so many garments that they don't need.
They will buy what they want like I think consumers are smart. They want to really, really know what they're buying. So we need to allow them to know. And I mean, it's hard to say because fast fashion is such a big problem. Right. And people are still really pretty like, okay, if I'm going to buy. So I think this one implement like these solutions, you can really see right away a big change in the companies that are using good better I'll try on so I will say right away in the returns and how like that even the production so the first step you'll see a reduction of returns.
The second step you start to get all this information about what they user actually wants to buy so that you can plan accordingly and design better for those needs. So then you would like reducing them reducing, but you have to make sure you're implementing across like from a technology, have to start in product development and then get ready like be more sustainable.
That right. And if you take it all the way to beautiful try on, I think we can do amazing. Do you have any thoughts around the acceptability around how accurate an item might look on a 3D model versus say, a photogrammetry? There's so many different methods to visualize an item on a body. Do you have any intel on what's acceptable to the consumer?
Yeah. So I, I mean, from working and also like for making these like micro bands and like going to the other bands like the coach in your and seeing how the people perceive it. So then photogrammetry or like the to the output when is an image and you just see it will allow us to user to see yourself represented in that garment say it will look good to me you know like when you just have that information.
Okay, that color looks good to me because these model has a skin tone or that card in these dress will look good to me because that model has my body proportions. So we'll probably get to buy it knowing that it will probably look good on you, but you don't know the fit. So then you have to implement for to the output size algorithm recommendation and that will get you a little step farther.
But if you have a 3D mesh of your garment, then you can put in the 3D body mesh of the user. Then you can see what like all that tension is. You can see like all around, if it's any gaping, like we all have different bodies withstand different like our posture. All of those things are important in how like even the shoes I'm wearing, you know this car is too long for me to wear without heels.
Things like that are important. So when I'm able to see how the looks in a 3D model, I am like almost sure that that's to look like that on me. So that's I will say the difference. Okay.
Okay. Okay. Thank you everyone.
