According to fashion market research, apparel manufacturing companies are investing in AI and machine learning to predict themes in trending patterns, silhouettes, colours, styles and customer sentiment around the product.
American premium clothing brand, Tommy Hilfiger announced a partnership with IBM and the fashion institute of technology with the aim of developing an artificial intelligence system with Infor Design and Tech lab. The project titled Reimagine Retail will show how various AI capabilities including computer vision, natural language understanding, and deep learning techniques can be paired with fashion data.
Tommy Hilfiger applied these machine-learning tools to 15,000 of its product images, 600,000 publicly available runway images, and almost 100,000 fabric patterns sites. The applied AI gave insights into Tommy Hilfiger’s style and silhouettes, trending colours, and patterns.
San Francisco-based online personal styling service, Stitch Fix is also working with AI. The company designs garments created by algorithms that identify trends and styles missing in the inventory, based on the combinations of the customers’ selections, such as their favourite colours, patterns, and textiles which are picked by AI systems.
Subsegments that were covered are dresses & skirts, women’s trousers, blouses, women’s jerseys, sweatshirts & pullovers, women’s coats and jackets, women’s suits and ensembles, women’s blazers, night & underwear, women’s t-shirts, women’s sports & swimwear, other women’s wear, men’s trousers, men’s shirts, men’s jerseys, sweatshirts & pullovers, men’s coats and jackets, men’s blazers, men’s suits, night & underwear (men’s and boy’s), men’s t-shirts, men’s sports & swimwear, other men’s wear, infant and toddler clothes, young children clothes.
The global apparel market size is expected to expand from $527.8B in 2020 to $635.7B in 2021 at an annual growth rate of 20%. The market growth is mainly due to the companies rearranging their operations and recovering from the COVID-19 impact, which had earlier led to restrictive containment measures, such as social distancing, remote working, and the closure of commercial activities. The market is expected to reach $842.3B in 2025 at an annual growth rate of 7%.
Major apparel companies include NIKE Inc, Adidas AG, VF Corporation, PVH Corp, Hanesbrands Inc.
