When the "old tailor" meets the "new technology", the costume design can still play like this

From the invention of the loom to temperature-controlled fabrics to the AR/VR fitting room, technology has always played an important role in fashion.

Today, the fashion industry is a $2 trillion industry with more than 200 million people, so "knowing what makes people look good and feel good" is big business. Artificial intelligence is already widely used to design collection, trend analysis, and predict which outfits will be popular in the future.

AI technology can take into account factors such as social media popularity or weather patterns, predicting which clothes are likely to sell well before they are produced, which can help save time and money. Designers don't have to guess which colors or fabrics will appeal to consumers, because algorithms can do just that.

The use of artificial intelligence is not limited to clothing manufacturing, it can also play a big role in retail stores. Stores can leverage previous purchase data and customer surveys, combined with AI technology, to create a personalized shopping experience for each customer, and even be able to predict which new products they might be interested in buying. Photographers like Javier Aranburu are also using artificial intelligence to capture and shape clothing in the way that works best for clients. Retailers such as Aranburu and Uniqlo are already using the technology to make recommendations to customers based on their previous choices.

Consumers are not just looking for the products they need, they are also looking for products that suit their personal style and body type. Brands have responded to this demand — they've hired virtual stylists and used algorithms to create real-time wear effects for shoppers. In addition, many companies are even using artificial intelligence technology to analyze photos of people wearing various costumes and then provide feedback on what they think looks good and what doesn't look good.

To strengthen the convergence of fashion and technology, the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) recently announced a three-year partnership with Shapeways, an online marketplace for 3D printing products.

Finally, the ultimate personalization of personal wardrobes is perhaps one of the most interesting applications of AI in the fashion world. We're all used to going to tailors to tailor suits, but the process is time-consuming and costly, what if we could skip the tailors? What if we could give the algorithm our body size and generate a set of templates that are the same as tailor-made? SUITABLEE, a high-end tailoring company founded by POC, is doing just that, revolutionizing the field.

SUITABLEE's "Digital Pattern Innovator" aims to provide customers with a fit suit in an affordable, fast and comfortable way. The system uses a 3D infrared body scanner to collect customer body size data locally to help provide better clothing for online customers in North America and Europe.

I had the opportunity to sit down with SUIDABLE founders Jean-Sebastien Siow and Jean-Jeremie Siow to discuss how AI is changing the fashion industry and their insights as business founders at the intersection of fashion and technology.

Q: How do tailoring companies use ARTIFICIAL intelligence?

SUITABLEE: It all started in October 2015, when our innovative idea was to combine vintage tailoring with technology. When we started, we didn't have any offices or stores because we wanted to start from scratch and build a strong foundation. We travel around the local area, visiting homes and businesses with thousands of fabrics, offering our clients an elegant bespoke suit service that is as simple as they are comfortable staying at home. Initially, it was all about learning the ins and outs of custom suits from professional tailors.

Over time, we began to notice that the data we measured was very valuable. It was at that time that we came up with the idea. We started preparing a huge database of measurement data and scanned thousands of people. This data was then used for artificial intelligence, creating a neural network about anthropometric data. We use this artificial intelligence to understand each customer's measurements and offer super-fit suits at the most affordable price.

Our automatic sizing technology generates customized digital clothing patterns based on the vast amounts of data generated by thousands of body scans of local customers. In the first few years of the company's existence, we measured and scanned thousands of customers, documented and digitized all of our suit design styles, and adjusted them by making changes and modifications during the cutting process. We correlate these very unique patterns with the customer's own data, and can now accurately generate new personalization styles based on the 12 questions the customer answers to us – because our data contains a lot of correlation. AI technology helps to learn these correlations.

AI is critical to our business because very few people are exactly the same size. Each person has his/her unique form – hence the need to gain wisdom through the accumulation and verification of existing data. This intelligence helps to generate unique, individual dimensions for each customer.

Q: How does it differ from the existing custom suit platform?

SUITABLEE: In the world of custom suits, there is no competitor that can generate measurements for suits like we do. Most competitors can only measure some very basic size data of the customer by hand, and then on this basis, make a random guess of the customer's clothing size. This can cause a lot of human error and explanation. Our sizing technology doesn't have much room for explanation. Essentially, we offer tailor-made fit suits and don't need to be like a traditional custom experience that requires customers to make multiple appointments and be on site.

Q: What other interesting examples of using AI that interest you in the fashion industry?

SUITABLEE: We love the AI applications in this industry that can recommend ready-to-wear and styles for customers. Having an AI stylist is exactly what we're thinking about.

Q: As a "person of color" in the field of artificial intelligence, what do you think about the diversity and diversity within this industry?

SUITABLEE: Asians born in the U.S. or Canada don't usually play a leading role in the fashion industry. However, the strong background of Asians in computer science learning, combined with Montreal (our home), the center of artificial intelligence, has undoubtedly helped make SUITABLEE a reality. We have never felt any resistance to incorporating AI into our company. Our engineering background may make it easier for us to have a bad reputation in the fashion industry, and Asians don't currently have an advantage in the fashion industry.

Q: Can you talk about the racial bias that exists in AI algorithms and how this bias might affect the use of AI algorithms in the fashion field?

SUITABLEE: We do see that our customers have racial biases about their bodies. For example, Asians often have shorter legs than other races. However, it is not uncommon for Asians to think that their leg length is average or normal when they mention it. Because we did not ask the customer's race in the AI questionnaire, the answers provided by our customers may be biased due to their personal racial bias.

Q: How do you see your AI technology evolving in the future?

SUITABLEE: We're going to see even greater improvements in the accuracy of our clothing sizes. AI has helped us, and we hope that AI will eventually become a tool to help individuals design and customize suits for specific needs (weddings, jobs, interviews, etc.). The improvement of clothing precision will continue to push us to be able to produce customized products at the fastest speed, and because of our precision, we will become the fastest customizer in the world.

Q: For you, what is the future of the most exciting AI applications in the fashion industry?

SUITABLEE: Ai has such a huge opportunity in the future. Apps can be said to be unlimited. In addition to generating the perfect suit size, we're also seeing AI helping the fashion industry become a greener industry. Clothing production and product returns are so wasteful and hurt our environment – we see AI technology already helping to reduce clothes that no one wants and clothes that don't fit – and it's the clothes that cause returns and waste.