Issue Story

From the February 2009 issue of MR Magazine

Features

Digitailors

Alex Féthière

MR catches up with a technology about to have its "bit mitzvah."

Digital tailoring is not new, but the gear has gotten a good deal more affordable and more compact since it debuted in 2001. It may also be poised to revolutionize everything about the menswear industry once the internet is effectively adapted as a bridge between manufacturer, retailer and consumer.

The technology creates precise image and measurement models of individual bodies for perfectly fitting suits. Using lasers or white light, it measures a cluster of data points, infers a shape using algorithms, and creates a wireframe figure from which it derives measurements of key body areas. This has worked principally for making tailored clothes, but has also served manufacturers in conducting research to improve RTW garment sizing. Finished product reaches the customer in two weeks or less, with virtually no significant adjustments required on receipt.

Brooks Brothers has always been in the vanguard of this technology, ever since the scanner took up the whole 3rd floor of their Madison Avenue store. The scan booth, computer and huge plasma screen “really attracted your attention to what was an otherwise quiet, conservative Brooks Brothers floor,” says Joe Dixon, SVP of production. Currently using a [TC]2 NX 16 scanner, the setup is now practically invisible within the custom suit department.

The NX 16 offers significant savings and a smaller footprint over the debut model. The original was around $50,000, but David Bruner, VP of technology development for [TC]2, says that the NX 16 is in the area of $35,000 now. “There is a lease program, but after a year of leasing you’ve paid for the cost,” he says. White light technology, obviating even the ghost of a safety concern that’s attendant on laser, scans the body and renders the data map in one minute.

Dixon says that the part most demanding of Brooks Brothers expertise is after the scanning. “If you were making a wetsuit or motorbike leathers, this thing would be absolutely fabulous. Customer preference is what makes it difficult: some people like to wear their clothing large, some tight, some like a cuff with a lot of space, some narrow, pants at full break or half break...all these things a scanner can’t tell. So a big part of the skill is to assess these, and most customers can’t even articulate these things.” A good tailor could inquire after or make these observations in the 45 minutes that traditional measuring takes, but here someone between scanner and production must review the order.

This expert review can be done remotely, as is the case with BenchMark Clothiers. BenchMark is a MTM vendor that installs [TC]2 scanners in retail store accounts, creating a readymade custom program at prices competitive with OTR suits ($699 to $899 at JNJ Menswear). After scanning and suit design, the order is reviewed by a master tailor who considers the input of the scanner with that of the salesperson who helped design the suit.

Jeri Jordan of Memphis’ JNJ Menswear, the “beta tester” of BenchMark’s program since 2006, puts it thusly: “After we measure you, we go through a quick confrontation to find your preference on your fit, which we put in ‘other’ so BenchMark can make adjustments.”

Body scanning is not a wholesale substitute for employee training on suiting, says Jordan. “Department stores will have to pay someone to monitor that machine to make it a success.”

Hitherto this has been a problem with widespread adoption, though BenchMark’s president, Kevin Lewis, says that BenchMark is in negotiations with certain major stores. “Multi-store retailers can take their men’s tailored suit department and reduce the footprint. We’re not a replacement, but an adjunct that allows them to reduce inventory. Our system is particularly good for people who don’t fit OTR very easily. In these times of economic difficulty, a retailer can reduce operational costs and shrinkage by using this program.”

Dixon says that the learning curve is steep for manufacturers; he says it took Brooks Brothers two years to line up the scanning, suit preferences, and manufacturing. He says the scanner was “roaring away out of the box—we couldn’t service the volume,” but “assessing and understanding the preferences is as important as the scan itself.” The program was in the development stages for two years, and the company conducted “50-man scans” followed by olympian fitting sessions: “We did several of those until we were confident we were capturing correctly, and the algorithms did what we wanted them to do.”

BenchMark had a similar protracted test period. Vice president Neil Allen writes, “There are many challenges involved in marrying the scanner to a manufacturer. It took literally thousands of trials with many different body types to flush out the spectrum that exists in men’s body types today.” Lewis says that through JNJ Menswear, they’ve made 400 to 500 suits, but repeat customers—especially in big and tall—are virtually assured.

Though U.S. stores have been building on bodyscan MTM, for real department-store adoption in custom clothing one must look overseas. German department store Karstadt has enjoyed the volume generated by a Human Solutions scanner, and 80 European retail locations use this German company’s laser-scanner for apparel.

Andreas Seidl, president of Human Solutions, says most retail accounts are department stores. Selfridges in London uses a scanner with denim vendor Body Metrics to make custom jeans and “pre-defined” jeans: “You get your fitting exactly and recommendations for which size is the right one, but the main business is MTM,” says Seidl. “Body Metrics sources production in Sri Lanka, but the jeans are very expensive and exclusive: between 150 and 1,000 British pounds a pair.”

Years of development like at BenchMark or Brooks Brothers have been circumvented with the aid of “try-on sizes” or “comfort sizes.” Seidl says that the shops use scanners to tell customers the “interpretation from the standard sizes” of apparel in the shop. “Suppose you are a large, the system will tell you that the large for this product is -2 centimeters (i.e., 2 centimeters too short) and the leg length is +1.5 centimeters. In the shop they have the standard sizes and you can try one on to see if the interpretation from your body dimensions to the size is comfortable.”

Because stores must keep test inventory in stock and “they cannot be so flexible about changing some shapes,” Human Solutions will debut a new system in March that frees up that space. “Only body dimensions will be used to produce the entire suit. No scanner, no try-on sizes, no comfort sizes—the product is manufactured and the manufacturer covers the sizing risk.”

Considering the success and market penetration Human Solutions has enjoyed without getting tied up in development, one wonders when bodyscanning will catch on in the States. 2009 should bring quantum developments with bugs ironed out on all sides and the virtual component presenting the next frontier.

Brave new net

Application of bodyscanning to e-tailing is palpably close. “There are lots of opportunities. We’re not developing it at the moment. It’s a fairly significant infrastructure project. The web platform we have now may not be able to accommodate it,” says Brooks Brothers’ Joe Dixon, choosing his words carefully.

[TC]2 has been operating a system called ImageTwin for some time; it allows data from any of their 25 ImageTwin-compliant scanners worldwide to be used for any application in apparel, health, avatars and medical. ImageTwin data is securely stored in the network.

The appeal of being able to size-conform by manufacturer or custom design, and even see clothing on your wireframe model would revolutionize online apparel retail—and it’s too groundbreaking to disclose until fully formed. Virtual Mirror, a U.K. company, has been developing such a system around women’s apparel and a single [TC]2 scanner in Glasgow for years. Plans to branch out into men’s are in the offing, but it is apparent from the website what will be arriving soon: the ability to use scan data to design and order your own clothes online, even modeling it using an avatar generated from the same scan data.