Artificial Intelligence Impacts Fashion Industry
Artificial intelligence is reverberating throughout the fashion industry and changing the clothes in which we live in. Meanwhile, the emerging and rapidly evolving tech is a perfect accompaniment to the industry’s forward-thinking and cyclical nature. This post takes a look at intelligent design and ways in which artificial intelligence is changing the fashion industry for the better.
What is Intelligent Design?
Both intelligent design (ID) and artificial intelligence (AI) fields address and utilize intelligence. Intelligent design addresses the information seen in nature that is beyond what is encountered in undirected randomness. Moreover, AI has historically dealt with mimicking human intelligence, but computer-based AI lies far beyond what is found within the creative abilities of the human mind.
Limiting factors for a computer’s creativity are dictated by the restrictions of algorithmic information theory applied to computers and the conservation of information. Therefore, there is a ceiling that limits the creativity of both computer modelling of nature and human-based intelligence. That being said, computers, in principle, are capable of executing any algorithm. Of course, this capability is now being used as a huge boon to the fashion industry.
How is AI Changing the Fashion Industry?
CB Insights’ Industry Analyst Consensus says that the fashion industry is on a trajectory of being worth more than $3T by 2030, making the fashion sector one of the largest industries in existence. Such a significant growth trend calls for rapid change agents and innovation on a massive scale if no one wants to be left behind.
In response, fashion tech is growing at a faster pace than ever to keep up with a field that is constantly in flux. Specifically, artificial intelligence is being used to close the gap by offering a dizzying array of innovations that automate, personalize, and speed up the fashion sector.
Here are a few companies that are getting a piece of the information-driven pie.
AI Designer: Iris Van Herpen
Dutch designer Iris Van Herpen is reveling in her artificial intelligence fashion sense, and celebs such as Viola Davis, Björk and Tilda Swinton are proud to strut around in her wearable art pieces. Today, she is going to great lengths to use it for her otherworldly creations in ways that are seldom glimpsed outside of a lab setting.
Van Herpen recently told New York Times Style Magazine, that she is dabbling in synthetic silks that are so lightweight a wearer can hardly detect them. The designer says she also has plans to design ultramodern materials, such as “bio-fabricated leather grown from cow cells; shape-shifting textiles whose transformation is triggered by elements such as heat and water; light-refracting, mirror-embedded fabric that renders the wearer invisible.”
Better Warehouse Logistics: Amazon
Fashion and robotics now have a very successful relationship, and the automatic learning technology inherent in robotics seems destined to automate almost any job that has some level of routine and predictability. Such is the case at fulfillment centers of e-commerce giant, Amazon, where software-controlled robots travel around massive warehouses, collecting and transporting merchandise faster and more accurately than their human counterparts.
The process is often followed by further automation: A handoff of the parcel to an Amazon Air drone courier. This increase in process efficiency makes delivery on the same day that you made the online transaction possible.
User-Driven AI: Project Muze
Intelligent AI-enabled systems can help bring greater intelligence to fashion brands by identifying patterns and predictive analytics, thereby allowing for greater insight into purchase patterns and fashion trends and giving better inventory-related guidance. A good example of this type of user-driven AI application is the machine learning experiment, Project Muze.
Launched in 2016, Project Muze is a joint venture between Google and German fashion platform Zalando. The experiment used around 50,000 data sets based on fashion preferences of more than 600 fashionistas. Project Muse’s neural network, an algorithm modelled on the human brain, was taught to understand aesthetic parameters such as textures, colors and style preferences. The code also learned to predict what kind of styles people might prefer and created designs that match them. To ensure that designs created by Project Muze are fashion-forward, the algorithms were directed by Google’s Fashion Trends Report.
The Results
Project Muse had ground-breaking results, along with some to build on. For instance:
- The experiment was a world’s first – technology that designs customized fashion choices.
- The publicly shared experiment had a broad reach of 19 million media within the first month. It also created over 40,000 fashion designs within the first month.
- The technology still needs some work since a lot of the designs were basically doodles. On the other hand, the gap between machine-created fashion and those created by humans is rapidly closing.
Automate Your Fashion Inventory with N41
The technology world is constantly evolving, and we can’t wait to see what it has in store for us next! However, as artificial intelligence allows for faster and more customizable fashion, the industry will always have a need for efficient and accurate inventory management tools to keep up with it.
N41 can answer this call, as we cater to fashion businesses with scalable ERP solutions that automate inventory, manage purchases, streamline operations, analyze data with flexible reports and much, much more. To find out about how we can help you, please contact us at (213) 738‐1010. Alternatively, you can request a demo using our online form.
