Imagine a world where a computer or device knows how much money we could afford to splurge on fashion, our budget, what we currently have hung up in our wardrobes and our sizes. Now imagine if it could tell you what is trending on the runways and what upcoming events you have in your online calendar to advise you on what you should buy or wear next. Slightly mind-blown by technologies ability to shape our lives?
Now many brands are now adopting this approach to drive more sales and improve the customers’ shopping experience. This will change the dynamics of fashion and the user’s shopping experience, but over time will it suit everyone, or will it constrain creativity?
Some of us may like the recommendations, such as the fact that an artificial intelligence device could effectively identify what styles and prints suit us. Other consumers may dislike the idea of a computer having this much power over the human mind and being able to influence our decisions in such a huge way and we wouldn’t be able to make fashion decisions or fashion faux pas of our own accord.
Recently, Amazon’s Echo Look was launched in the USA as a style assistant camera which captures your current outfit using only hands-free voice instructions. If you want style advice without trawling through pages upon pages on various fashion websites, then this app could be your saving grace.
You simply need to capture and upload your daily outfits to the Amazon Echo Look app, put them into relevant sub-sections and receive quick style advice. The Style Check aspect of this app will analyse two different types of looks and provide you with two options of what suits you best. Amazon have declared that this is done through a combination of using machine algorithms as well as human fashion experts.
We use fashion as a means of art, expression of cultural freedom and a way to communicate with others, could an artificial intelligence device really capture those emotions, and do we really want it to?
