Shop the iStreet: how smart new tech is changing the future of the fashion store

Cher Horowitz’s virtual wardrobe in Clueless might not be far away, says Rachael Sigee
Rachael Sigee has a clothing styling session with stylist Elin Mai through the portal of a virtual mirror from Westfield
Matt Writtle
Rachael Sigee22 April 2016

Standing in front of a mirror in a changing room is up there with my least favourite things to do. The combination of Blair Witch Project-style lighting and mirrors showing angles you’d rather pretend didn’t exist while a girl in the next cubicle shouts “This one’s too big as well!” generally results in me bingeing on anything that doesn’t need to be tried on: shoes, bags, jewellery and ill-advised hats.

Retail technology has already eliminated the need for making physical shopping trips, paying with cash and even going up to a till; now the target is all the niggles that still make the shopping experience anything but smooth.

Westfield is taking things further by trialling virtual styling sessions — a personal shopping service operating from the Sanderson Hotel in Soho which uses an interactive mirror to allow customers to speak to stylists and have access to an advanced search tool which catalogues products from its retailers.

The immediate advantage of standing in front of the mirror is that I have plenty of distractions to stop me pulling duck faces and posing awkwardly. Instead, I’m standing naturally and chatting to Elin, a personal stylist based at the White City Westfield, over Skype — she appears on video just to the left of my head. On my right there is a touchscreen that allows both me and Elin to scroll through thousands of products from different retailers and discuss the clothes. Whereas normally the stylist would have limited options available at hand to talk me through, Elin has seemingly endless products to show me virtually before she pulls together looks on the other side of London. One of the reasons I’ve never had a personal styling appointment is that I envisioned it ending with me (and probably the stylist too) crying on the floor surrounded by discarded pencil skirts and culottes.

Mirror, mirror: Rachael Sigee seeks the help of stylist Elin Mai, speaking to her via an interactive mirror

Instead, at the end of my 20-minute appointment, I can catch up on emails in the hotel room and grab some lunch.

Two outfits with assorted accessories are delivered within 90 minutes and anything you don’t want is left in the hotel room to be packaged up and sent back.

Myf Ryan, chief marketing officer at Westfield, says: “Technology, or enhanced assistance, continues to evolve in tune with customers changing expectations of what a shopping journey should feel like. Westfield knows that shoppers are looking to physical retailers to go beyond the transaction and provide richer consumer experiences that can’t be replicated online.”

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Its How We Shop report in 2014 showed that when customers are physically in stores they decide where to shop based on mobile signal strength or wi-fi availability. Even when we’re rifling through the racks we are supplementing our experience with our phones and consequently retailers are starting to merge their online and physical offerings.

The interactive mirror service reflects that, falling somewhere between an all-out Saturday afternoon, laden with bags at a shopping centre, and sitting on the sofa at home filling up a virtual shopping basket.

With shopping apps and websites retaining our bank details, offering one-click purchasing and dealing with customer service via Twitter or live chats, we are used to an easy ride.

At Adobe’s recent marketing summit it revealed a concept that could solve the problems of changing room-phobes in the near future: full body scanning instore using a Microsoft Kinect device, which can analyse measurements and make corresponding product suggestions.

Adobe is tapping into what the consumer wants — according to a report by Infomentum, 15 per cent of shoppers would like to use virtual reality to “try before you buy” by 2020 (thereby damning those changing rooms forever).

Elin Mai's finished look

Virtual and augmented reality has been creeping its way into retail stealthily — the difference between the two is that VR immerses a user in a fantasy world that is nothing to do with their physical reality, while AR incorporates reality — which would allow customers to “virtually” try things on.

Last year Dior offered customers in select stores VR headsets to immerse themselves in backstage scenes at catwalk shows, while furniture brands such as Ikea are using technology to show customers more and more advanced versions of its customised home designs. A video released this week by secretive (but already valued at $4.5billion and Google-backed) Silicon Valley company Magic Leap shows an augmented reality which includes the user apparently browsing a watch store.

Even those who prefer traditional shops are being catered for by technological developers such as Preksh, a start-up which has launched the world’s first visual commerce platform, which recreates physical stores online to allow customers to virtually browse a 360-degree walkthrough and purchase products.

Follow Rachael Sigee on Twitter: @littlewondering

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