The start of New York Fashion Week emphasized how new, innovative technologies are working their way into the very old fashion business.
Including virtual try-ons, smart mirrors, cameras tracking items taken off a rack and the omnipresence of AI, brands are integrating new tech into their shows to demonstrate how that tech is affecting the shopping experience.
For example, at the L’Agence show on Wednesday evening, the California brand partnered with Google for an AI-powered virtual try-on experience. Attendees at the presentation could upload a selfie to see AI-generated images of themselves wearing each of the 10 looks from the collection on mirror displays around the space.
Google’s existing AI-powered virtual try-on tool launched to the public early last year. Google has expanded the tech into new markets like India and the U.K. in recent months and launched a standalone app, Doppl, dedicated to the feature. Virtual try-on has become the No. 1 shopping tool that users share on social media, according to Google.
“Today, fashion is about how a woman experiences a brand, not just the product itself,” L’Agence CEO Jonny Saven told Glossy in an email. “Our partnership with Google is another step in bringing L’Agence closer to her, wherever she discovers us. We’re turning inspiration into something immediate, personal and interactive.”
But perhaps no brand embraced new technology at NYFW to a greater degree than Public School. The New York brand founded by designers Dao-yi Chow and Maxwell Osborn made its return to NYFW this season after a seven-year hiatus. On Thursday, the designers hosted an exhibition along with tech partner SAP that showed off an array of new in-store technologies the brand is using, including RFID-enabled tags, smart mirrors and cameras tracking what items get pulled off the rack.
“We are constantly thinking about the customer experience at all the touchpoints: storytelling, visuals, obviously the collection and the store,” Chow said. “And we’ve always prided ourselves on being at the forefront of those intersections between fashion and technology.”
SAP, which is helping to power some of the new retail tech Public School is using, is one of the largest companies in Europe and the largest non-American software company, with over 400,000 clients, including brands like Swarovski and E.l.f. Beauty.
Jan Gilg, SAP’s global president of customer success in the Americas, said that not all of SAP’s wide array of retail tech tools are the right fit for every fashion brand.
“We always start with the problem they are trying to solve,” he said. “Where is friction showing up today: discovery, engagement or fulfillment? What we’ve seen through our work with fashion brands big and small is that the most effective tech is phased, flexible and largely invisible to the consumer. It supports creativity, rather than distracting from it.”
Gilg gave the example that independent designers like Chow and Osborn from Public School may focus more on tools involving direct engagement and pre-order capabilities, while a larger fashion brand may get more use out of SAP’s omnichannel tools.
“When technology is aligned to a brand’s scale, identity and immediate goals, it stops feeling overwhelming and starts acting as an enabler,” Gilg said.
For a brand like Public School, there’s more reason than ever to embrace technology that can help bolster the DTC channel. Osborn’s other brand, anOnlyChild, is one of many brands still owed money by Saks Global after it went bankrupt last month.
“It’s frustrating because we use some of the same factories for Public School, and I have to explain to them that I can pay for this work and not for that work, because the stores haven’t paid us,” Osborn said. “Working with SAP, doing this show, it only made sense with this retail component because DTC lets us take the power back into our own hands. The wholesale model just feels broken and has for quite some time.”