From 3D avatars to wardrobe advisers, artificial intelligence is shaping the way we get dressed. But can there really be an algorithm for style?
- Read more from theautumn/winter 2018 edition of The Fashion, our biannual fashion supplement
Who do you turn to when you can’t decide what to wear? Your best friend, maybe. Instagram, probably. People like me and magazines like this one (hopefully). But soon, perhaps, it will be none of the above. Instead, you will try on an outfit, turn to a wall-mounted, five megapixel camera with front lighting and dual-antennae wifi connectivity, ask, “Alexa, how do I look?” and within a few seconds the 1.6 watt speaker will deliver the data-driven, empirically-founded assessment.
The Echo Look is Amazon’s first “style assistant”, recently rolled out across the US after an invite-only soft launch. No UK launch date is set, but the technology – which analyses your outfit through a combination of algorithms and (human) “fashion specialists” – is set to revolutionise what technology means to style. Just four years ago, the cutting edge of technology in fashion was Tommy Hilfiger’s solar-powered phone-charging jacket. Horse-and-cart stuff, compared with what is going to happen to fashion next.
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