With 3D and VR, Chinese tailor aims to help more find 'perfect fit'
Wearing tailored clothes and presenting the elegant and unique self might be many people's unspoken dream especially in an age when all malls and shops wear the same look.
Ju Faye, or Ju Feifei, a post-80s Beijing native, spotted the demand for bespoke dresses in 2013 when her major work was designing and manufacturing ready-to-wear women's evening dresses for a British brand, ZELEB.
The London College of Fashion graduate did not notice that there was a growing need for tailored clothing in China until one of her friends came to her and complained about lack of choice.
Her friend, who worked at a fashion magazine, wanted a skirt, so Ju Feifei took her measurements and designed one for her. Afterwards, the friend asked for minor changes and ordered four more skirts in different colors. At that time Ju was busy helping build the read-to-wear brand of Jacques Azagur, who has served the British royal family for more than 30 years, with Princess Diana among his customers.
In addition to working as the chief designer of ZELEB brand, which was launched in 2010, Ju was busy smoothing every process of the plant she had set up from scratch, hiring and training employees, with all expenditures and no net profits at all.
Now she has a mortar-and-brick store in Beijing offering tailored clothes to 50 to 60 customers, each of whom spends at least 20,000 yuan ($3048) each year, making this store self-reliant.
The customer base is more a result of word-of-mouth advertising, rather than active marketing, said Ju, who, as the chief assistant to Jacques Azagur, had accumulated years of experience in the high-end customerization sector before returning to China in 2012.
She added that some of her female customers are so satisfied with her tailored clothes that they also bring along their husbands to find their unique fit in the store.
"The customer base is big enough as I cannot serve more clients due to the limited capacity of our team, said the once chief-assistant of Azagur.
Ju said her mentor once said there might be only 20,000 customers who wear fully tailor-made clothes in the world due to high prices. A coat might cost 20,000 yuan and that's too much for an average person, she added.
Micro-customization might be the way out as she learns gradually. More importantly, maturating 3D body scanning technologies and virtual reality technologies can help this new business model go even further.
3D body scanning can be used to replace time-consuming traditional tailoring and virtual reality technologies can be used to show the effect of wearing yet-to-be-fabricated clothes, according to her.
"The measurements collected from 3D scanners are more accurate than manual work, so why don't we use the new tech?" Ju asked, adding that many tailors working in the rather narrow sector of garment customization are against the new tech in the name of tradition.
After the 3D model of a customer is established, designers could "put on" the virtual clothes on him or her and do alterations accordingly, including changing colors and size of the prototype clothes.
For prototype clothes, the entrepreneur who still serves as the chief designer of her company Lanzhi Fashion Limited said her team would roll out six to 10 items of clothing, including classic dresses and coats each season. And for each item, there will be 10 pieces.
Based on one of the prototype piece a customer favors, he or she could further select from 20 colors and 20 linings, under the help of a designer.
"Twenty-percent adjustments could fulfill 80 percent of the custom needs." And more importantly, customers could see the 3D virtual effect of themselves wearing the clothes before they are made. "
"Images could be sent to their smartphones or tablets and alterations could be made if they are not satisfied."
However, Xia Hua, a female entrepreneur who has been in the garment industry for more than 20 years, said currently both the 3D technologies and VR technologies are mainly used right before purchasing, playing the role of a fitting room，rather than the early stage of design. Xia's company sells suits to China's entrepreneurs, including Alibaba's Jack Ma.
Wang, a PHD holder who has studied VR for years and is also founder of Punchsea Technologies Company Limited, a startup specializing in technologies related to trying accessories in the virtual world, said it is true that 3D technologies and VR technologies are still used in purchasing but they will definitely be used in design, and will change or even overhail the whole clothing manufacturing industry, especially the custom-made sector.
In the future, designers will create clothes on a 3D model directly, rather than drawing it on a piece of paper, Wang said.
But he admitted that currently there are still challenges ahead as new technologies are still expensive and experiences are still not that good.
A handheld scanner might cost more than 10,000 yuan, while the price of a body scanning closet might be as high as one million yuan, Wang said.
The more accurate the machine, the more expensive it is, he added.
In addition, experiencing a body scanning via a hand-held scanner is not very pleasant as one might feel tired as he or she needs to keep still during the whole process, which might take several minutes. The potential customer might turn reluctant as he or she might be asked to scan her whole body wearing only underwear.
While industry insiders are still pondering where imperfect technologies might have a market, scholars might be more visionary.
Zhou Ting, chief director of Fortune Character Institute, said in the research agency's 2015 luxury report that the internet makes scaling up of customerization possible as when individuals needs are collected via internet, after being classified and analyzed, they could be matched with producing capacity at the supply side. Personal needs could be met on a mass scale thanks to big data, and this model will change the stereotype that customerization could not be a "big" industry.
Customerization sector witnessed an unprecedented development in 2015, with 4,000 such brands in existence, outnumbering traditional luxury brands 20 to 1, according to Zhou. Forty percent of these custom brands have a history of 10 years and 40 percent have a history of less than three years.
High-end customerization, at an yearly revenue of $50 billion, has taken up a 20 percent share of the whole luxury market. She added that garments and pearls are the main items for customerization and predicted that the market share of custom brands might peak at 50 percent.
"Everything could be custom-made in the future", Zhou said.
However, back to the Ju Feifei's digital customerization model, investors tend to be cautious.
Wei Xu, a VR industry investment manager with Hejun Capital, said application of VR in traditional industries is becoming a trend, but for the individual case, scaling up of offline custom-made stores are still in doubt.
"One single store's success cannot guarantee another". "New technologies can lower costs but those who customerize their clothes are not sensitive to prices, but it takes time for them to be willing to use new technologies."
"VR technologies can change the whole process of garment manufacturing, sales and purchasing in the future, creating a customer-to-manufacturing model but this tremendous change might take place online, rather than offline," she said.
Ju admitted that her second entrepreneurial move might not be easy but she plans to connect all the key points of this model in one year.
The London College of Fashion graduate did not notice that there was a growing need for tailored clothing in China until one of her friends came to her and complained about lack of choice.
Her friend, who worked at a fashion magazine, wanted a skirt, so Ju Feifei took her measurements and designed one for her. Afterwards, the friend asked for minor changes and ordered four more skirts in different colors. At that time Ju was busy helping build the read-to-wear brand of Jacques Azagur, who has served the British royal family for more than 30 years, with Princess Diana among his customers.
In addition to working as the chief designer of ZELEB brand, which was launched in 2010, Ju was busy smoothing every process of the plant she had set up from scratch, hiring and training employees, with all expenditures and no net profits at all.
Now she has a mortar-and-brick store in Beijing offering tailored clothes to 50 to 60 customers, each of whom spends at least 20,000 yuan ($3048) each year, making this store self-reliant.
The customer base is more a result of word-of-mouth advertising, rather than active marketing, said Ju, who, as the chief assistant to Jacques Azagur, had accumulated years of experience in the high-end customerization sector before returning to China in 2012.
She added that some of her female customers are so satisfied with her tailored clothes that they also bring along their husbands to find their unique fit in the store.
"The customer base is big enough as I cannot serve more clients due to the limited capacity of our team, said the once chief-assistant of Azagur.
Ju said her mentor once said there might be only 20,000 customers who wear fully tailor-made clothes in the world due to high prices. A coat might cost 20,000 yuan and that's too much for an average person, she added.
Micro-customization might be the way out as she learns gradually. More importantly, maturating 3D body scanning technologies and virtual reality technologies can help this new business model go even further.
3D body scanning can be used to replace time-consuming traditional tailoring and virtual reality technologies can be used to show the effect of wearing yet-to-be-fabricated clothes, according to her.
"The measurements collected from 3D scanners are more accurate than manual work, so why don't we use the new tech?" Ju asked, adding that many tailors working in the rather narrow sector of garment customization are against the new tech in the name of tradition.
After the 3D model of a customer is established, designers could "put on" the virtual clothes on him or her and do alterations accordingly, including changing colors and size of the prototype clothes.
For prototype clothes, the entrepreneur who still serves as the chief designer of her company Lanzhi Fashion Limited said her team would roll out six to 10 items of clothing, including classic dresses and coats each season. And for each item, there will be 10 pieces.
Based on one of the prototype piece a customer favors, he or she could further select from 20 colors and 20 linings, under the help of a designer.
"Twenty-percent adjustments could fulfill 80 percent of the custom needs." And more importantly, customers could see the 3D virtual effect of themselves wearing the clothes before they are made. "
"Images could be sent to their smartphones or tablets and alterations could be made if they are not satisfied."
However, Xia Hua, a female entrepreneur who has been in the garment industry for more than 20 years, said currently both the 3D technologies and VR technologies are mainly used right before purchasing, playing the role of a fitting room，rather than the early stage of design. Xia's company sells suits to China's entrepreneurs, including Alibaba's Jack Ma.
Wang, a PHD holder who has studied VR for years and is also founder of Punchsea Technologies Company Limited, a startup specializing in technologies related to trying accessories in the virtual world, said it is true that 3D technologies and VR technologies are still used in purchasing but they will definitely be used in design, and will change or even overhail the whole clothing manufacturing industry, especially the custom-made sector.
In the future, designers will create clothes on a 3D model directly, rather than drawing it on a piece of paper, Wang said.
But he admitted that currently there are still challenges ahead as new technologies are still expensive and experiences are still not that good.
A handheld scanner might cost more than 10,000 yuan, while the price of a body scanning closet might be as high as one million yuan, Wang said.
The more accurate the machine, the more expensive it is, he added.
In addition, experiencing a body scanning via a hand-held scanner is not very pleasant as one might feel tired as he or she needs to keep still during the whole process, which might take several minutes. The potential customer might turn reluctant as he or she might be asked to scan her whole body wearing only underwear.
While industry insiders are still pondering where imperfect technologies might have a market, scholars might be more visionary.
Zhou Ting, chief director of Fortune Character Institute, said in the research agency's 2015 luxury report that the internet makes scaling up of customerization possible as when individuals needs are collected via internet, after being classified and analyzed, they could be matched with producing capacity at the supply side. Personal needs could be met on a mass scale thanks to big data, and this model will change the stereotype that customerization could not be a "big" industry.
Customerization sector witnessed an unprecedented development in 2015, with 4,000 such brands in existence, outnumbering traditional luxury brands 20 to 1, according to Zhou. Forty percent of these custom brands have a history of 10 years and 40 percent have a history of less than three years.
High-end customerization, at an yearly revenue of $50 billion, has taken up a 20 percent share of the whole luxury market. She added that garments and pearls are the main items for customerization and predicted that the market share of custom brands might peak at 50 percent.
"Everything could be custom-made in the future", Zhou said.
However, back to the Ju Feifei's digital customerization model, investors tend to be cautious.
Wei Xu, a VR industry investment manager with Hejun Capital, said application of VR in traditional industries is becoming a trend, but for the individual case, scaling up of offline custom-made stores are still in doubt.
"One single store's success cannot guarantee another". "New technologies can lower costs but those who customerize their clothes are not sensitive to prices, but it takes time for them to be willing to use new technologies."
"VR technologies can change the whole process of garment manufacturing, sales and purchasing in the future, creating a customer-to-manufacturing model but this tremendous change might take place online, rather than offline," she said.
Ju admitted that her second entrepreneurial move might not be easy but she plans to connect all the key points of this model in one year.
