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 - 3D Artist vs CGI Studio
CGI in fashion and design - what are the possibilities? In fact, CGI opens up creative dimensions that were unthinkable a few years ago. Fashion is now predominantly sold online. According to Statista, 41 percent of respondents in German-speaking countries buy clothing mainly or exclusively online, and the trend is rising.
You can't do without an online store in fashion and design. And this is where CGI comes into play: photorealistic renderings compared to conventional product photography offer 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?
With product photography, you have the opportunity to show products from different angles, 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 items of clothing from your range. Avatars can be dressed as desired to see the effect of different garments together.
- Different color? No problem at all. One click in the online store is all it takes to change the color. Or the size. How does the blouse or hoodie look with dark hair and a darker complexion? Click, different model, same garment.
Since most online stores are accessed from smartphones these days, you can assume that your customers have a camera at their disposal. Keyword AR, Mister Specs has been using it for a while now: Simply offer your customers the opportunity to try on fashion using their smartphone!
The camera integrated in every smartphone brings your customer to the display, a click in the online store places a sweater, jeans, sneakers, blouse or handbag over the clothing.
This is possible because a digital version of your collection exists. Every single item of clothing is photorealistically depicted. Lovingly crafted 3D visualizations show every single seam in sharp detail. Your customers can almost feel the surface of the products.
CGI Fashion ImageCost efficiency through CGI: How digitization is revolutionizing fashion retailing
CGI is 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 and are independent of appointments. Light, weather conditions and other natural implications can't throw a spanner in the works. The entire logistics are leaner. What's more, 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 continuously in recent years. A few years ago, the realistic representation of fabrics, especially surface designs with CGI, consistent lighting and texture, was still a problem, but this is no longer an issue. The technical advances are impressive - and so are the 3D visualizations in fashion and design.
The Ikea catalog is a good example of what is already possible in this respect. Ikea may mean interiors, furniture and furnishings instead of fashion and design, but textiles play an important role here too. In 2012, the proportion of CGI in the catalog (online) was still 25 percent. In 2017, according to Ikea, it was already 78 percent.
3D Fashion RenderingCGI Fashion Influencer
In the fashion industry, digitalization 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 figures who, like their human counterparts, wear fashion, set trends and have large numbers of followers on social networks. They are available 24/7, independent of real-life conditions and can be designed for specific target groups.
The difference between a traditional fashion influencer and a CGI influencer lies in their existence. While the traditional influencer is a living person, the CGI influencer is a virtual construct created by graphic designers and marketing specialists.
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 seen as the next evolutionary step in 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 has known Mave since the release of their first single "Pandora's Box" at the end of January 2023. The four girls in the K-pop band, Siu, Zena, Tyra and Marty, look exactly how you would imagine the girls in K-pop to look: Perfect figure, breathtaking hair, always impressively styled. And the clothes! Vinyl and leather, shiny metal, all figure-hugging and yet incredibly plastic. Every piece is tailored to the girls.
Siu, Zena, Tyra and Marty do not 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 provocative fashion, everything is CGI. Mave is computer design. 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 created the entire collection on a computer. Product development using CGI - it certainly works in fashion and design. The real-life garments, 44 looks in total, were presented on the catwalk by a single model.
Is that really possible? Yes and no. 3D fashion visualization makes possible what is actually not possible. Of course, various models walked for the collection. But beforehand, model Eliza Douglas' face was digitized using 3D scanning and created as a replica.
The digital twin of the model (the face) was projected onto the individual looks that walked the catwalk in real life. Virtual and real elements merge. Basically, 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 applications that are currently possible? Start dreaming, get creative! Once your collections exist as digital twins, much more is possible. Avatars, i.e. people created using CGI, in games, films and various AR/VR applications want to be dressed. Is your target group active on social media? Maybe you've already 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. She wears Prada at Fashion Week in Milan and doesn't shy away from fashion.
But neither Lil Miquela nor the troll Bermuda are real people. Both are virtual influencers. Brud, the start-up behind Lil Miquela, has created a life for the computer-generated influencer that could actually take place.
Lil goes out in New York, meets real-life celebrities, learns to skate, drinks matcha lattes. And is asked for beauty tips by her followers. Here, too, it is not clear at first whether she is a "real" influencer who heavily edits her pictures. Lil Miquela has a boyfriend, also a virtual influencer, also created by Brud.
Do you use social media for your marketing? CGI pushes the boundaries of your possibilities. In addition to your own virtual influencers who wear your fashion collections, collections that exist exclusively virtually are also conceivable.
Did Prada Brud pay for Lil Miquela to wear Prada in Milan? The two companies are not revealing this. Perhaps a whole new business segment in fashion is emerging here.
3D Fashion Photo Set from Danthree Studio
