Sign in to view
member only content

Spotted: Huge volumes of clothes are sent to landfill every year. One reason for this is that more and more people are buying poorly fitting clothes online, often from cheap, fast fashion brands. Even when customers don’t personally bin these items and instead send them for returns, it’s still often easier for brands to throw the garments away rather than process them. Enter Aistetic.

The Oxford University spinout has developed an AI tool that uses computer vision to scan users’ bodies and provide accurate measurements for clothing, so customers can be sure online purchases they aren’t able to try on first will still be a perfect fit. In under two minutes, customers use a smartphone to scan their body and Aistetic then creates a complete, personalised size profile with their measurements and sizing, which can be used for repeat shops.

The digital tool is easily integrated into retailers’ existing websites, helping customers select the right size for ready-to-wear clothes, or automatically generating the necessary measurements for made-to-measure items.

The company estimates that the technology could reduce the rate of unwanted clothing returns by up to 30 per cent. This not only saves carbon, water, and other resources, but also cuts costs for online retailers, who will need to process fewer returns. In the coming years, Aistetic hopes its solution will be used across platforms in retail, fitness, healthcare, and the metaverse.

Written By: Lisa Magloff and Matilda Cox