Virtual Reality Will Impact Fashion In More Ways Than You Know
The fashion industry is always open to innovation. Any change that can increase product visibility, improve consumer experiences, increase company profits, and/or make style more interesting will typically be welcomed with open arms. Right now though, the fashion industry is in the early stages of embracing virtual reality, which has already shown some exciting promise but which may ultimately impact things more than we realize right now.
To begin to grasp the potential impact here, let’s look at some of what we know and a few guesses as to where VR and fashion may yet intersect in the future.
Home Shopping In VR
Virtual dressing rooms are being discussed more and more as promising innovations in VR. The term is actually being used to describe various applications rather than just dressing rooms specifically. For our purposes though, there is a clear impact on fashion. Essentially, through virtual reality, people can put on headsets at home and find themselves browsing through digital stores, selecting garments, and “trying them on” such that they can then look to mirrors and see how they look, without ever actually trying the garments on. It’s something that’s going to take some adjusting to, but at the same time a very exciting change in home fashion shopping.
Mirrors
VR mirrors are quietly becoming some of the most exciting applications in fashion. They’re appearing in mainstream stores here and there but have yet to reach widespread use, even if it seems like a matter of time. The idea here is actually not associated with our traditional vision of virtual reality, which is to say it doesn’t require a headset. Instead, this is the idea that while passing by a store window, you’ll step in front of a mirror that will show your reflection, but show you what you’d look like wearing an outfit or accessory from the store. It’s a blatant sales tool, but an incredibly fun one, and essentially a new alternative to browsing or even trying on clothes in some cases.
VR Events & Gatherings
One area VR hasn’t quite gotten into yet is that of social gatherings. that is to say, we don’t have too many instances of networks or communities in VR, where we can interact through avatars. This is undoubtedly on the way though. Social networks themselves will ultimately move into VR, as will some gaming and entertainment concepts. There is, for example, great promise in the idea of establishing full-fledged communal casinos in VR. With the growing number of online options in this space, digital casinos are already getting very sophisticated, and represent a perfect opportunity for this kind of VR adaptation. The point here though is that once we start gathering more in VR we’ll start to care more about how we look in VR. And because at that point there’s a game-like aspect to all of it, we’ll essentially be able to outfit ourselves however we like. It’s a somewhat silly concept, but there will actually … Read More..