Students of the IT University develop a multi-module fashion platform. The application for iOS and Android will help users to buy clothes recommended by stylists and check whether these fashion items fit them. The project by the IT University team was ranked third at the Fashion Hackathon event in Moscow.
Gael Guedia, a student from Cameroon who authored the fashion project, shared that he often came across people who avoided buying clothes online because they could not find a suitable garment.
"At Innopolis University, I met my new friend Farrukh. He often complained that choosing fashion items on the Internet is quite a challenge because you never know if the garment fits you until you try it on. So, I decided to help him," said Gael Guedia.
Gael offered other students of the University to join the team, in particular, his fellow student Farrukh Holmukhamedov and a first-year student Galina Kocharina. During the first three months, they examined all applications available in AppStore and Play Market related to the fashion industry, and studied thousands of posts published by stylists on Instagram and Linkedin where the experts showed how to combine different articles of clothing.
The Outfit and Dress-Code app (O&DC) is a platform that enables networking and cooperation among its users who are looking for suitable clothing and fashion services.
The platform is based on communication between users: the application helps to find articles of clothing according to individual parameters, fashion trends and bloggers' columns.
Using body parameters — height, weight and physical features set manually by the user — the program finds photos of people with similar body parameters and tags that serve as a link to the online store where these garments were bought. "That is our solution to one of the most pressing problems related to online shopping — selection of fashion items that fit you," said Gael.
In future, a team of young developers plan to add subscriptions to fashion magazines, use machine learning to predict trends, and virtual reality to create a wardrobe.
Machine learning will help to choose the best outfit based on weather conditions and user's virtual wardrobe uploaded in the application. Besides, the application will timely inform you in case you are missing a hat or any other article of clothing and offer you several options available in stores nearby. Developers plan to apply virtual reality so that users could try on clothes before buying them. Now the team is looking for stores that would be interested in using this technology.
Fashion stylists often publish misleading or biased comments to the posts in social networks. It was the next challenge faced by the young developers. Some people even pay for positive reviews and feedbacks. Besides, celebrities and fashion bloggers advertise products they never tried. This fact inspired the team to develop a new algorithm that will help to avoid this. The algorithm will be based on user's reputation. Thus, everyone who publishes a post will be rated. The higher is the rating, the more credible is the feedback.
Programmers asked students of Innopolis University to take part in testing of their ideas. Female students told about fashion problems they face i.e. search of affordable and high-quality makeup artists.
"A good makeup is often expensive, and it takes much time and efforts if you do it yourself but do not have relevant skills, - recalled Gael. We have decided to add a new feature that will help to find a suitable make-up expert. The main criteria of this feature are as follows: affordable price and best location. Services of hairdressers and stylists are available in the similar mode.
According to our study, many stylists cannot open their own online store or a showroom. A multifunctional platform will find clients for young businessmen and provide affordable access to the market. Using the application, one can open a private store, receive a detailed statistics about clients and understand their needs, while the stores will get advertising benefits from the platform.
Gael Guedia: "I do not think that technologies somehow change fashion. Instead, they help to attract people in this industry. It is said that fashion is not for everyone. However, we offer a smart choice of clothes and accessories, and that is how we break this stereotype. In other words, technologies attract attention to the fashion industry and allow people to enjoy it. Of course there are individuals who are interested in fashion but have no idea how to get in the industry. In this case, IT platforms act as intermediaries.
A 4th-year student believes that promotion of fashion items and accessories is a driving force for technologies applied in the fashion industry, while the Internet of Things is the future of the fashion world. According to Gael Guedia, Nike and Apple already use this principle.
"We want Russian fashion industry to keep its rapid growth, and domestic designers - to compete in the international arena," said authors of the project and mentioned that the app release is scheduled for the 1st quarter of 2017.
