Greg Otto, wtop.com
WASHINGTON – A reasonable caveat to buying clothes online is the inability to know exactly how the garment will fit before it hits your mailbox. Online shoppers who roll the dice on trying to guess the right size face the prospect of a costly return policy.
A solution to this problem may lie in the movements of an Estonian robot.
Fits.me, a start-up website of two engineers from Estonia, boasts the first-ever “virtual fitting room,” allowing consumers to try on clothing via a mannequin that can shift its shape to fit 2,000 different body shapes.
How the mannequin translates all those sizes into a virtual fitting room is explained on Fast Company’s Design Blog:
When a retailer signs up with Fits.me, they first send in their clothes. Each size is placed on the robot, which then cycles through all the body shapes it knows. (Think of the scene at the end of Terminator 2, when the T-1000 is being melted down.) While that’s going on, a camera is taking pictures of each permutation. This photographic log is then stored in an online database. Once you go online and type your measurements into the retailer’s site, it calls up the photo corresponding to your precise body type and clothing size.
A number of European-based retailers, including Thomas Pink and Barbour (which have brick-and-mortar stores in D.C.), have started using the technology on their websites.
According to the Fits.me website, stores using the technology have seen a 57 percent increase in sales and a 28 percent reduction in returns.
“When I was a kid, I had this dream that one day, I would have an army of robots to rule the world,” Heikki Haldre, Fits.Me’s CEO told Fast Company. “I’ve only got a couple now, but that’s okay.”
Before the robot army assembles, you can enter your measurements into the fitting room by visiting the “featured clients” section on the Fits.me website.
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