Table of Contents for CGI in Fashion: Online Shopping & Design Redefined:
- Digital twins and augmented reality: the future of online fashion retail?
- Cost efficiency through CGI: How digitization is revolutionizing fashion retailing
- Technological advances make CGI indispensable
- CGI Fashion Influencer
- Does CGI know any limits at all?
- How Balenciaga uses CGI
- A look into the future: digital fast fashion, games, films, marketing in social media
- FAQ
CGI in fashion and design - what are the possibilities? In fact, CGI opens up creative dimensions that were unthinkable just a few years ago. After all, fashion is now predominantly sold online. According to Statista, 41 percent of respondents in the German-speaking world purchase clothing predominantly or exclusively on the Internet, and the trend is rising.
So you can't do fashion and design without an online store. And that's where CGI comes in: Compared to conventional product photography, photorealistic renderings give you the opportunity to impress your customers with a very special service.
3D Fashion Visualization
Digital twins and augmented reality: the future of online fashion retail?
Product photography gives you the opportunity to show products from different sides, in different designs and on different models. But the digital twin of your products can do even more:
- Your customers can see the garment on the model and turn the model - all-round visibility is no problem at all.
- Shop-the-Look? Let your customers combine garments from your assortment. Avatars can be dressed as desired to see the effect of different garments together.
- Other color? No problem at all. One click in the online store is enough to change the color. Or the size. How does the blouse, the hoodie look with dark hair and a darker complexion? Click, different model, same garment.
Since most access to online stores today takes place from a smartphone, you can assume that your clientele has a camera at their disposal. Keyword AR, Mister Specs has been using it for quite a while: Just offer your customers the possibility to try on fashion via smartphone! The camera integrated in every smartphone brings your customer onto the display, one click in the online store puts sweater, jeans, sneakers, blouse or handbag over the clothes.
This is possible because a digital version of your collection exists. Every single garment is represented photorealistically. Lovingly crafted 3D visualizations show every single seam in great detail. The surface of the products can be experienced almost haptically by your customers.
CGI Fashion ImageCost efficiency through CGI: How digitization is revolutionizing fashion retailing
CGI are inexpensive compared to conventional product photography. You don't need a location, no set, neither in-house nor rented outside. You have no costs for models and photographers, you are independent of appointments. Light, weather conditions and other natural implications can't throw a spanner in the works. The entire logistics are leaner. In addition, CGI is more predictable.
In fashion and design, what the automotive industry has known for a long time has now arrived: If products are created digitally from start to finish (i.e., from conception and planning to development and marketing), this saves costs and time. The entire process becomes more predictable, which has a positive effect on efficiency.
Technological advances make CGI indispensable
In fact, the proportion of CGI compared to conventional product photography has risen steadily in recent years. While the realistic depiction of fabrics, especially surface designs, consistent lighting and texture, still posed problems a few years ago, this too is no longer an issue. The technical advances are impressive - and so are the 3D visualizations in fashion and design. You can see what's already possible in this respect by looking at the Ikea catalog. Ikea may mean interiors, furniture and furnishings instead of fashion and design, but textiles play an important role here, too. In 2012, the share of CGI in the catalog (online) was still 25 percent. In 2017, it was already 78 percent, according to Ikea.
3D Fashion RenderingCGI Fashion Influencer
In the fashion industry, digitization has not only revolutionized retail and design, but has also significantly changed influencer marketing. The use of CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) now creates digital personalities that can act as fashion influencers. These CGI influencers are computer-generated characters who, much like their human counterparts, wear fashion, set trends and have large followings on social networks. They are available 24/7, independent of real-life conditions, and can be customized to target specific audiences.
The difference between a traditional fashion influencer and a CGI influencer lies in their existence. While the traditional influencer is a living human being, the CGI influencer is a virtual construct created by graphic designers and marketers. Despite their artificial nature, these digital influencers have the potential to set real fashion trends and promote brands in innovative ways. They fit perfectly into a world where online identities and experiences are becoming increasingly relevant, and can be considered the next stage in the evolution of influencer marketing.
Not only can they fit seamlessly into social media, they also open doors to entirely new business models. For example, fashion could be created for virtual worlds, computer games or special online events. This opens up a wide range of possibilities for future business models and marketing strategies in the fashion world.
Does CGI know any limits at all?
Almost everyone knows Mave since the release of their first single "Pandora's Box" at the end of January 2023. The four girls of the K-Pop band, namely Siu, Zena, Tyra and Marty, look exactly like you would imagine the girls in K-Pop to look: Perfect figure, stunning hair, always impressively styled. And what about the clothes! Lacquer and leather, shiny metal, everything figure-hugging and yet incredibly plastic. Every piece is tailored to the girls' bodies.
Siu, Zena, Tyra and Marty don't exist, at least not as real people of biological origin. The band is computer generated. From the perfect pouty lips to the incredibly shiny hair to the slinky fashion, everything is CGI. Mave is design on the computer. Metaverse Entertainment, the company behind Mave, has never made a secret of it either. Why does it work in the K-pop scene?
It works because our viewing habits have changed. In social media, we constantly encounter images that somehow look "artificial. Filters ensure that what is not perfect looks perfect. The important thing is not that it looks "real", but that the not always perfect reality is not visible. Can you really see if there is a "real" person or "real" fashion behind the filter, or if the carefully processed surface is masking a grid?
How Balenciaga uses CGI
For Balenciaga 's spring collection, designer Demna Gvasalia's entire collection was created on the computer. Product development using CGI - it certainly works in fashion and design. The real-life garments, 44 looks in all, were presented on the runway by a single model. Is that possible in real life? Yes and no. 3D fashion visualization makes possible what is actually not possible. Because, of course, different models walked for the collection. But in advance, model Eliza Douglas' face had been digitized via 3D scan and created as a replica. The digital twin of the model (the face) was projected onto the individual looks that walked the runway in real life. Virtual and real elements merge. In essence, this is also "just" a form of AR application.
A look into the future: digital fast fashion, games, films, marketing in social media
Why should you stop at the current possible applications? Start dreaming, get creative! Once your collections exist as digital twins, there's a lot more possible. Avatars, people created via CGI, in games, movies and various AR/VR applications want to be dressed se4n. Your target audience is active on social media? Maybe you've heard of Lil Miquela.
Miquela Sousa, known as Lil Miquela, has more than a million followers on Instagram and has already been hacked by a troll associated with the right-wing spectrum. At Fashion Week in Milan she wears Prada, oh otherwise she does not keep behind the fashion. The only thing is that neither Lil Miquela nor the troll Bermuda exist as real people. Both are virtual influencers. Brud, the start-up behind Lil Miquela, has built a life for the computer-generated influencer that could actually take place like this. Lil goes out in New York, meets real-life celebrities, learns to skate, drinks matcha lattes. And is asked by her followers for beauty tips. Again, it's not clear at first if this is a "real" influencer who heavily edits her pictures. Lil Miquela has a boyfriend, also a virtual influencer, also created by Brud.
Are you using social media for your marketing? CGI pushes the boundaries of your possibilities. In addition to your own virtual influencers who wear your fashion collections, you can also think of collections that exist exclusively virtually. Did Prada Brud pay for Lil Miquela to wear Prada in Milan? The two companies are not revealing that. Perhaps a whole new business segment is emerging here in the fashion segment.
3D Photo Set Fashion by Danthree Studio
