Send in the Clones, E-Commerce Site Says
When fashion producer and impressario Michael Venedicto launches his Fashion Los Angeles runway-show concept next year, he plans to also introduce a new technology that allows consumers to create an avatar—or clone—to try on clothes for them.
Fashion Los Angeles is scheduled to launch in February 2011 with a series of runway events near Walt Disney Concert Hall. Venedicto is planning to introduce his new technology at the same time. Lands’ End’s e-commerce boutique offers its customers a similar service. But Venedicto said his project’s technology has a better cyber representation that is superior to the avatars, or 3-D images, used on other sites. “We’re dressing you up,” he said. “It’s like a photograph of you. It moves and it is three-dimensional.”
The technology was created in partnership with Los Angeles–based Cloud Cliques Inc. A beta version for the as-yet-unnamed digital-clone project will roll out in mid-December. Fashion Los Angeles will send invitations to fashion VIPs and mavens to have their bodies scanned to create a digital clone for free. Fashion labels that want to make their designs available in the cyber world will have to pay for the service.
Shopping the runway
As consumers are lining up to be cloned, Fashion Los Angeles will offer another online service to designers. Venedicto called it content aggregation, and this page of interactive video will be accessed on a separate page of the www.fashionlosangeles.org website.
With this service, designers will upload still photography and video ranging from fashion shows to interviews with the designer. Viewers will be able to click on any part of the pictures and enriched video—perhaps a dress, the coat worn by an interviewer or a drink on a table—and they will get more information about that object.
The method of delivery will be familiar to anyone who has read a comic strip or watched the VH-1 program “Pop-Up Video.” Click on a dress, and a pop-up bubble will appear, offering information about what material the garment is made out of, where to buy it or perhaps biographical information on the designer being interviewed. Consumers also will be able to control the flow of information. If they want a steady stream of information, they can access it. They also can turn it off and enjoy a plain video.
Venedicto said it is crucial for Los Angeles fashion to master technology. “Fashion, as a whole, views Paris, Milan and New York as leaders in presentation, but they underutilize technology,” he said. “We can be leaders in this realm of the technology of fashion. We can make a significant change globally because of that.”—Andrew Asch
