According to an IBM study, 52% of female Generation Z would like to see tools that allow them to customize the products for themselves.

• The ever-increasing expectation for speed in delivery of the product is a big challenge.
• Several fast fashion retailers can get the product to shelves within weeks
• Other clothing items take somewhere around 6 to 12 months of development.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is being used to produce key insights on trends to both expedite the initial design process and better predict demand for hyper-localized products. Making the whole process of study of trends to filling shelves with the product that the consumer wants.

Project Reimagine Retails was initiated by IBM, Hilfiger and The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) Infor Design and Tech Lab.

It aimed at showing how AI capabilities can give retailers an edge in terms of speed, and equip the next generation of retail leaders with new skills using AI in design, according to Steve Laughlin, general manager of IBM Global Consumer Industries.

FIT students were given access to IBM Research’s AI capabilities which is specifically trained with fashion data. Those tools were applied to:

• 15,000 of Tommy Hilfiger’s product images
• 600,000 publicly available runway images
• 100,000 patterns from fabric sites

This exercise brought about key silhouettes, colors, and novel prints and patterns that could be used as informed inspiration for the students’ designs.

“The machine learning analysis gave us insights about the Tommy Hilfiger colors, silhouettes and prints that we couldn’t begin to consume or understand with the human mind. This enabled the FIT Fashion Design students to take their inspiration from Americana or popular fashion trends and marry that with the ‘DNA’, if you will, of the Tommy Hilfiger brand across those dimensions to create wholly new design concepts,” explains Michael Ferraro, executive director of FIT’s Infor Design and Tech Lab.

AI will help in key areas like

• Making trend prediction more accessible
• Make their designs more informed and relevant
• Ability to design elements that will customize and personalize looks for certain markets or consumers
• Getting products to market faster (Few sales opportunities lost)

Today’s rapidly evolving consumers’ expectations, product trends, and external market forces posing tough time for fashion companies with a slow-moving process, in turn, hampers a brand value.