Where Retail Apparel Meets Airport Security?

By Matt Pillar, chief editor

Bodylabs and 3DPrint.com are holding a jointly hosted webinar on June 23 called How to Use 3D Body Imaging to Innovate In the Apparel or Footwear Industry. Jon Cilley, Chief Evangelist and Director of Marketing for Body Labs, will discuss the company’s research and the potential for 3D technology to change the clothing and footwear industries. He’ll also likely discuss some recent research that Body Labs conducted, which the company says makes the case for 3D imaging technology in the apparel market. Nearly a quarter of all apparel purchases are returned, according to the survey, and some 64 percent of it is returned because of a poor fit.

Enter Body Labs, which hopes to change that paradigm for retailers by creating “digital avatars” of apparel shoppers that are not only physiologically correct, they can be animated to replicate the natural movements of the human body. The idea is that there’s just got to be a retail sizing application buried somewhere in this more sophisticated way of measuring the human body.

On premise, I buy the argument for a couple of reasons:

• Digital measurements would provide an omni-channel apparel sales advantage. Tied to a customer record, detailed size data is a valuable recommendations tool, especially in e-commerce apparel where shoppers don’t have the luxury of a fitting room. That is, assuming the customer’s size doesn’t change all that often. An extra half-inch makes a significant difference to the fit of a pair of jeans.
• Body scan data would make tailoring and custom-fit clothing more efficient. Where apparel merchants offer onsite tailoring services, these precision measurements would certainly be appreciated. The “handsy” experience of measuring an inseam wouldn’t be missed. Not by most, anyway. Body Labs says one of its differentiators is the animation part, which would help apparel brands pay particular attention to the way their clothes fit a body in motion.
• Data from collective body scans would prove valuable to precision apparel product manufacturing, sourcing, sizing, distribution and more. Every apparel shopper has favorite brands whose sizing systems seem to work just right. Body Labs says that by averaging parts of each dataset of scanned customers apparel merchants might be able to create more accurate sizing profiles. This potential would have significant positive effects up and down the supply chain.

There’s always an application for more precise data.

In this particular case, however, I’ll need to be convinced that enough apparel shoppers are so tired of saggy jeans and “plumber’s cracks” that they’d be willing to have their every nook and cranny scanned, TSA-style, in hopes of a better fit. Without a critical mass of opt-in shoppers, neither the data driven by 3D scanning nor the value it provides apparel shoppers will make it worth apparel merchants’ time and effort. Having said that, keep in mind that innovation rarely happens devoid of a skeptic. Tune into Body Labs’ upcoming webinar to learn more.