2020 could very well be remembered in the pages of history as the year of fashion’s mid-life crisis. An unprecedented global lockdown changed the much-revered fashion week calendar, raising existential questions about the prudence—or even necessity—of sartorial theatrics and elaborate productions. Amidst much hand-wringing about the excesses of the industry, one pawn on the chessboard found itself blessed with the momentum that it needed—virtual fashion shows. Although touted as the next big thing for a while now, virtual alternatives have never quite been able to compete with their real-world counterparts. With the fashion world suddenly finding itself caged within a global lockdown, the contactless world of virtual runway shows managed to make the transition to the mainstream.
Further proof of the same can be found in Milan-based deep-tech company, Bigthinx, that offers artificial intelligence for fashion and retail. Chandralika Hazarika and Shivang Desai, the co-founders, recently put together a live virtual runway show for Fashinnovation, a business platform that connects fashion designers with tech innovators within the industry. Hazarika confirms that the sudden lockdown served as the springboard for the virtual business model to achieve lift-off. She elaborates, “In April 2020, a client who had been hard hit by the cancellation of fashion weeks and travel bans asked us if we could create a virtual photoshoot of their clothing on the avatar of a famous supermodel which they could showcase to their buyers and distributors around the world. When Jordana Guimarães, the co-founder of Fashinnovation, saw this video and our technology, she immediately asked us to produce a virtual fashion show. Our artificial intelligence technology automatically creates life-like virtual avatars and digital clothing. These garments were showcased on the virtual avatars, which were then animated to walk a virtual ramp in a 3D setting to recreate the atmosphere of a physical runway show.”
The full article read on the Vogue India