What we learn from Fash­ion­Tech Works

It’s no secret that retail and sus­tain­abil­i­ty present quite a chal­lenge to the fash­ion indus­try. More­over, fierce com­pe­ti­tion forces brands to reflect on how change can help them stand out or even com­plete­ly rein­vent them­selves. Through­out, tech­nol­o­gy is a dri­ving force as well as the per­fect means for com­pa­nies look­ing to over­come today’s and tomorrow’s obsta­cles. This also became appar­ent from the inter­na­tion­al pro­gram Fash­ion­Tech Works, host­ed by Flan­ders DC in Antwerp last month.

24 par­tic­i­pants from 11 coun­tries each got 3 min­utes to pitch their project to a six-mem­ber jury. In the evening, they could con­tin­ue shar­ing their vision as well as expand their net­work at Fash­ion­Tech (Net)Works, a cock­tail par­ty attend­ed by the local fash­ion and tech com­mu­ni­ty, too. Press­ing prob­lems and their solu­tions were always the start­ing point.

Empha­sis on ser­vice over product

The future of shop­ping and retail is one of the major issues the fash­ion indus­try is cur­rent­ly grap­pling with. Espe­cial­ly in our west­ern soci­ety, the con­sumer has every­thing his heart desires.

The con­sumer is not look­ing for more prod­ucts, but for ser­vices to make his life eas­i­er. This phe­nom­e­non of servi­ti­za­tion is rapid­ly gain­ing impor­tance. The Bel­gian start­up Sha­vatar, a spin­off of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Antwerp and research cen­ter Imec, pro­vides us with a beau­ti­ful exam­ple. ​“Our ambi­tion is to reduce all size-relat­ed returns in e‑commerce”, says Geert Mertens, the dri­ving force behind Sha­vatar. ​“We’ve devel­oped a mod­el that can accu­rate­ly pre­dict the 3D body shape, based not on scans but on eight sim­ple para­me­ters the con­sumer has to fill out. This not only enables us to offer size rec­om­men­da­tions; the data we col­lect also con­sti­tutes valu­able feed­back that the company’s design team can use to opti­mize their fit.” Sha­vatar hopes to get its launch ver­sion ready by the first
quar­ter of 2020.

Fash­ion­Tech Works allows young star­tups like Sha­vatar to get in touch with oth­er play­ers who are open to cross-fer­til­iza­tion – a huge plus, obvi­ous­ly. One of these play­ers is MAC­TY, a Bel­gian com­pa­ny that relies on arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to facil­i­tate the consumer’s search for the right items on e‑commerce plat­forms. The shop­per no longer types in key­words but uploads a pic­ture. MAC­TY com­pares this image to the web shop’s offer and dis­plays match­ing prod­ucts. A win-win for every­one involved, because the retailer’s con­ver­sion rates are also sure to increase.

RetailDetail’s busi­ness unit man­ag­er Katrien Huy­gens over­saw the work­shop on the future of shop­ping that was next on the pro­gram. Accord­ing to her, inno­va­tion is the mes­sage, but every­thing depends on pub­lic sup­port. After all, no mat­ter how hard a com­pa­ny push­es a cer­tain tech­nol­o­gy, ulti­mate­ly it’s the end con­sumer who decides whether it will catch on or not. Is he ready for those wild ideas to begin with? All par­tic­i­pants agreed that this cer­tain­ly is a valid ques­tion to ask.

Cir­cu­lar sys­tems look­ing to scale up

When it comes to sus­tain­abil­i­ty, the role of fash­ion tech should not be under­es­ti­mat­ed either. The Fash­ion­Tech Works par­tic­i­pants who are active in this area main­ly focus on find­ing solu­tions to cut the envi­ron­men­tal impact of the lin­ear fash­ion sys­tem that has been in place for years now, as well as on set­ting up cir­cu­lar ecosys­tems instead. w.r.yuma is an inter­est­ing case in point. This Bel­gian brand trans­forms post-con­sumer recy­cled plas­tics into 3D print­ed sun­glass­es that can, in turn, be dis­as­sem­bled at the end of their lives. ​“Now we con­cen­trate on col­lab­o­rat­ing with inter­na­tion­al fash­ion giants,” co-part­ner Len­ja Doms reveals, ​“so we can bring the prin­ci­ples of the cir­cu­lar econ­o­my to those lin­ear fast fash­ion com­pa­nies as well.”

Dye­Coo deliv­ered the win­ning pitch, con­vinc­ing the 850-strong audi­ence dur­ing a pitch bat­tle with APA Intem­po­ral dur­ing Fash­ion Talks the day after. The Dutch com­pa­ny devel­oped a non-tox­ic, safe, cir­cu­lar and inex­pen­sive tech­nol­o­gy to dye poly­ester with reclaimed CO². The icing on the cake? The process involves not a sin­gle drop of water. ​“It is high time we turned the sup­ply chain of the tex­tile pro­duc­tion around and switched from wet to dry process­es”, says DyeCoo’s Femke Zijl­stra. ​“We should join forces before it’s too late.”

Loud call for col­lab­o­ra­tion and transparency

Mod­er­a­tor Eve­lyn Mora, who found­ed the sus­tain­able Helsin­ki Fash­ion Week and works as a con­sul­tant for Tes­la and the Euro­pean Space Agency, among oth­er orga­ni­za­tions, thinks the key ques­tion is: how to bal­ance busi­ness and sus­tain­abil­i­ty? Servi­ti­za­tion holds the answer, she believes. ​“We don’t need more prod­ucts. We need to focus on the real, big issues and devel­op ser­vices that cater to these needs. There’s a demand for that, both in B2B and B2C mar­kets.” COSH!under­stood that per­fect­ly. The Bel­gian plat­form helps cus­tomers who can’t see the wood for the trees, guid­ing them towards sus­tain­able shops. Using numer­ous fil­ters, you can plot your per­son­al­ized shop­ping route with COSH!. Anoth­er beau­ti­ful exam­ple: Ger­man com­pa­ny LUK­SO used blockchain tech­nol­o­gy to cre­ate a dig­i­tal pass­port for phys­i­cal prod­ucts. The ID con­tains infor­ma­tion on the ori­gin of the resources, the fac­to­ry where the item was made, its pre­vi­ous own­er, and so on. Tech­nol­o­gy has an impor­tant role to play in mak­ing fash­ion more trans­par­ent – which in turn is a pre­req­ui­site for sus­tain­abil­i­ty and respect­ing human rights.

Invis­i­ble wear­able tech

This doesn’t mean that prod­ucts can’t be a dri­ving force to solv­ing the mod­ern consumer’s prob­lems, though. Take Tessender­lo-based com­pa­ny Bio­rac­er, which spe­cial­izes in aero­dy­nam­ic and ther­moreg­u­lat­ing sports­wear for skiers, cyclists and triathletes