Role of IoT in the Fashion Industry
Style, sophistication, glamour, and perfection rule the fashion industry. The latest trends in its environment have a significant influence on the fashion business. Recent times have seen the emergence of technology as one of these tendencies.
The dominance of technology in the industry grows as people gradually move away from traditional brick and mortar retail outlets and toward online purchasing platforms. Retailers have reached out to include the new environment created by these technologies as innovations like artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and virtual reality deepen their roots and change the operations of numerous enterprises.
Internet of Things, often known as IoT, is one such exciting prospect that has waltzed up the ramp of the fashion business. IoT is a technology that automates our environment by enabling internet-based communication and interaction with commonplace objects like customers, producers, businesses, stores, etc.
You might be wondering how precisely this technology is affecting the fashion sector. IoT is now being used in more places than only cars, wearables, and smart homes, going beyond our wildest expectations. Did you know that our wish for our misplaced clothing to signal their whereabouts may actually come true? All because of IoT!
IoT in fashion is currently more than just the use of wearables like Google Glass or smartwatches; it also involves the stitching of invisible sensors onto fabric or enabling interconnected apparels to perform a variety of functions, such as alerting the user about the product’s materials, helping to detect the product if it’s lost, or even facilitating style advice. We’ve reached a point where technology and fashion can be combined to create clothing that can be used to measure heart rate while exercising, baby outfits that can evaluate a baby’s sleep pattern or even his or her vital functions, or clothing that can protect our body skin from pollution or deterioration.
In essence, the Internet of Things simplifies the tasks for its consumers. With the use of its tracking capability, it aids in reducing loss and enables more effective inventory management. By using barcodes and RFID tags, one may keep track of any instances of fraud, establish client loyalty, track the popularity of particular products, and make sure they are up to date on current consumer-related trends.
Role of IoT in the Fashion Industry
Health Benefits
This is one of the first and most important issues in which IoT is making a significant contribution. The potential for monitoring and measuring a person’s health while they are wearing smart clothing is enormous. Smart clothes, which include ECG as well as a sensor to detect heart rate, send information and data to smartphones by deploying an app, which helps the user in analyzing their health and in seeking any necessary medical advice. Smart accessories include smartwatches that can calculate heart rate and diabetes, sense a seizure, assist with posture, and perform a variety of useful functions.
This is especially helpful for those who work in risky or high-stress environments, such as firefighters, police officers, and members of the military, as it allows for the detection of the person’s heart rate and other vital signs.
Modernizing Retail Stores
Although this feature has not yet completely developed, it has a bright future. The center of fashion retail will shift to customization as smart clothing gradually becomes the standard, leaving store-bought and ready-to-wear outfits obsolete. Brick and mortar stores will shrink in size, making it their primary responsibility to display the newest patterns and styles that may be customized for each consumer.
Technology is predicted to advance to the point where the wearer will be able to customize every element of the clothes they buy. Before placing their personalized smart clothing order, buyers will be able to try on items of clothing in-store using smart mirrors that will allow them to make virtual adjustments to the length, size, design, patterns, and color. The use of technology also helps the consumers create distinctive, one-of-a-kind personalized products.
The speed of production is another factor that gives smart clothes a competitive edge. As technology advances, the time between testing on the garments, customizing various items, tailoring them, and giving them to the consumer can be reduced to hours.
Never Lose a Clothing Item
Everybody has experienced misplacing or losing a dress or another piece of clothing that we may or may not be able to locate. IoT has the ability to solve this issue, though. Several designers are now investigating the concept of fusing IoT with clothing to create smart clothing items that can tell the user where an item is if it is lost. The user’s phone can get a signal from the sensors placed in their clothing informing them of the precise location of the clothing item.
Manufacturers and suppliers can use this function to keep track of their products and learn details like who purchases them, how frequently they are used, etc.
Convenience
Finding the appropriate clothing is not always simple, especially when there are so many factors to take into account, such as the brand, the size, and the materials being utilized. IoT-enabled smart purchasing makes this process easier and more transparent. By giving customers access to information on their goods like never before, fashion retailers are currently altering the way consumers shop.
IoT-powered packaging is becoming popular, with this packaging notifying the consumer of the product’s origin and the resources used in its creation.
The consumer can also save time by making payments with IoT-powered goods. A scarf, for example, can be worn by the consumer, who can then leave the store by a sensor door that connects to the scarf and starts contactless payment.
Applying Emotions
With the help of IoT magic, fashion genuinely plays a fascinating part in expressing a person’s emotions. Emotions are thoroughly incorporated into the fashion business, from regulating body temperature to diagnosing and relieving stress through clothing products.
Understanding the feelings that customers identify with a brand can improve interactions with them and, as a result, their ability to generate sales.
Sport Perks
Sports firms can benefit greatly from technology advancements because sports apparel plays a big part in the fashion sector. These IoT technologies offer very useful information on the fitness of players during a match due to the significant upheaval in sports data analytics. This provides coaches with information about the work rate of their players and helps them decide whether or not to replace them.
Football boots are an additional item that can be useful and provide relevant data through IoT in the field of sports fashion. Coaches are given information on the angle and force of impact with the ball through implanted sensors that determine each player’s step.
Colour and Pattern Altering
Amazingly, patterned and colour-changing fabrics are no longer a pipe dream! A sensor system has been used by Lauren Bowker, a fashion designer at The Unseen, to develop and construct a fabric that can change colors and patterns.
The outfit the designer created can also understand the feelings of the person wearing it. By monitoring brainwaves and adjusting itself in accordance with those waves, the clothing can detect human magnetism.
As technology develops and makes ever more breakthroughs and advancements, improving the power of a single piece of fabric with each new development, the future of the fashion business seems exciting. Why should what we wear be an exception when the abundance of technology blends itself into our daily lives and aims to revolutionize every part of our existence?
But in order for all businesses operating within this sector to successfully excel in their application of the Internet of Things (IoT), it is imperative that at every stage, it be kept in mind that the fashion industry is a product of the demands of its consumers.
