Clothing is mostly mass produced and one hopes to find pieces that roughly fit. I have a friend who is outside normal design ranges and fit just doesn't happen, but a surprising percentage of "normal" people have problems finding clothing that fits well. Some surveys suggest more than half of women can't find jeans that fit well enough to please them.
About a decade ago mass a few companies started working with schemes for mass customization of clothing - usually a person would have their body scanned producing a large number of accurate measurements and this data would be used to create very customized patterns which would drive automated cutting machines. Cornell even had a program studying the process.
A bit of this is done today, but it is still very rare. Others, like Lands' End ask you to make measurements and hope to provide something that fits better than off the rack clothing.
The current model of having clothing made in in the third world with several middlemen and huge profits is well established and anything new will be difficult - particularly when one has the difficultly of getting good measurements (unless you use a tailor or scanning booth, measurements by hand are not terribly accurate), a time gap of several weeks before you see the product, and a higher price. There is a lot of room for clever innovation.
But there is great promise. Americans spent about $439 billion on shoes and clothing in 2007 - about $1500 per capita and seriously more than many other "hot" economic activities.
There’s a website called www.getmysize.com that allows people to create a profile with their body measurements and compare them side by side with clothing added to the site. It’s very helpful for people who want to know the exact size clothing before they buy online.
Posted by: Ryan | January 22, 2010 at 23:39