Fashion is one of the biggest and most expansive industries of all time. Everything we see around us is either influenced or is related to fashion. Before 2019, when Covid hit, some of the biggest fashion capitals of the world like China and European countries such as Spain and Italy, Fashion was the big bang, the biggest industry hiring and operating billions of resources and dollars.
But post-Covid, there is a need to revamp this platform and to enhance retail and shopping with features such as Virtual Reality, Virtual Try On, Augmented Reality, and Phygital – a platform that enhances the shopping experience and takes physical stores and helps them provide easy and accessible digital solutions.
Some of these terms are very new and innovative and will take a few months or years to trickle down to the common man but if one looks around, it is easy to spot the examples that major retail chains have taken to incorporate the digital world into the physical retail world to enhance the shopping experience in fashion.
Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality in Fashion
Augmented reality is the science of using graphics, information, and data from the digital world and using these to combine and provide an unreal experience in the real world.
Augmented reality is catching up to be one of the biggest and most useful techniques in Fashion retail as more and more retailers are using the digital platform and combining it with the real shopping experience to provide easy and convenient physical shopping just like one would sit at home, but with the experience of shopping in the real world.
Some of the examples for the use of Augmented Reality in the Fashion retail platform can be seen in major brands across the world such as Proctor and Gamble’s subsidiary Max Factor – a cosmetic brand that has partnered with an AR app and enlisted all their products on the app so that all a customer needs to do is physically scan the product and everything one needs is listed online – tutorials for usage, recommendations, testimonials, pricing, range, etc.
Virtual Reality is another major game-changer that the fashion industry is currently going through. Similar to Augmented reality, Virtual reality uses 3D motion, hand gestures, haptic feedback, body movements, and head movements to generate real-life imaging for the consumers and clients and helps in providing a real-life experience by modeling and virtually experiencing concepts and products.
One of the best examples of Virtual Reality is the Virtual Try-On feature that has now been made possible by fashion retailers such as Jewellery, Makeup, Skincare, Clothes, etc. Apps are now integrating the merchandise that a customer can touch and feel inside a retail outlet and help try them on virtually with the use of graphics, real-time 3D imaging along hand and head movements and gestures.
This can make the shopping experience extremely interactive and pleasurable as the interface not only allows viewing and trying but also to explore catalogs, sharing of images and videos and video conferencing with friends and family just like one would at a physical store.
These techniques have greatly changed the fashion game and retail experience as we know it and have given new meaning to the shopping experience in the physical world but with the use of digital tools. In the new era that we live in, the challenges of physical shopping can be easily solved and taken on with these creative solutions.
