towards clothing that fits

Once clothing was custom tailored for those who could afford it, but mass production brought the concept of sizing -  an approximate notion that sort of works.  For most guys it isn't a big deal, but women generally expect a better fit and a someone who is a size 8 in one dimension may not be in another.  One study indicated more than half of women of a given "size" have some issues with fit. 

With a few exceptions "custom" clothing means printing user designs on tshirts or allowing customer input of a five to ten measurements.  Of course if  you have money you can go to a good tailor or dress maker. If you have a lot of money a designer can get involved. 

About ten years ago body scanners began to appear. The idea was to acquire enough information accurately enough to drive custom fabrication tools.  Some universities like Cornell were involved in the work (see an interesting history by the Cornell folks here) and an interesting future was sketched out.  You still need good three dimensional models of the human body and skilled designers, but now the model could be manipulated to match an accurate representation of your body and an electronic pattern could drive automatic cutting machines.    A really nice idea, but too expensive given the extremely low cost of mass production in the third world.  As a result there are only a handful of small companies that use scanners.

One is indiDenim.  If you visit their Emeyville, CA location they will scan you with an Intellifit scanner and a few weeks later jeans are shipped to you from a fabrication plant in Mexico.  They also will work with your measurements you supply, but folklore is the probability of getting a good fit is much better if you are scanned.

Intellifit was recently acquired by Unique Solutions and it will be interesting to see if they can make a go of the business.  Their scanner is rf based rather than a laser scanner, so you don't need to dress in something that makes you nearly naked.  They advertise scans for about $50 and will have fabrication partners.  So far the partner list is slim and there are only two scanners in the US (four more "coming soon").   I hope they will succeed, but for now it may be most practical for people who have extremely difficult fit problems - the people who have to use tailors anyway. 

The apparel business is a large chunk of the economy and a large fraction of customers are not happy with fit ...  there is a real opportunity for someone to get it right.  Standards are needed as well as inexpensive scanners (scanners could get very inexpensive if you made them in the tens of thousands).  One could imagine Google or Amazon being a broker who might jumpstart this in order to collect your data and be a connection hub to designers and fabricators.  Custom will probably mean precise fit with a bit of user selected customization available, but the choices will probably be based on an existing design.  Most people can't design - so think of it as a list of options. 

The apparel industry has too many layers and inefficiencies - it basically works because you can find $2/day labor in the third world.  One wonders how long that can last given the possibility for a system that can produce clothing that fits.  And if this happens there may be people who are doing street fashion now who might find the barrier to design much lower.  Something about ten thousand flowers blooming...

And there are shoes - at least one company is scanning feet and making custom shoes (it seems spendy, but I have no idea what custom shoes cost)

(thanks to Jheri for great discussions on this)

Comments

[Something Designer]

Very interesting article, good work - thanks for sharing!

[Kids Lab Coats]

Vey nice post, I have bookmarked your site.

[Ryan Illingworth]

"Size" is a very subjective word. It's gives shoppers an idea, but shopping for clothes online needs to have more information. A website call www.getmysize.com relies on measurements in addition to sizes when clothing gets added to their site.