Could Clo’s “Virtual Fitting Room” Change The Way We Shop?

It's a truism that's long plagued high-end clothing retailers: The more expensive an item is, the less likely people are to buy it online. Makes sense to us. After all, it's one thing to risk $20 on a Gap T-shirt that may or may not flatter you in person, but it's quite another to drop $300 on a dress sight unseen. Now, a company called CLO Virtual Fashion Inc. is aiming to close that gap by giving shoppers the tools they need to truly see how a garment fits before they purchase it.

Fast Company reports that CLO has created something called a C-Mirror. It's a real-life mirror that projects digitally created garments over a person's body — essentially functioning as a virtual fitting room. While department stores like Bloomingdale's and Macy's already use body scanners and virtual fitting rooms like Me-Ality and TrueFit, CLO claims its technology goes beyond basic fits, recreating a garment down to the minute details, and — most importantly — it can actually simulate the way different fabrics drape on different body types. That's very good news for high-end clothing designers, whose more substantial fabrication and beautiful draping justify higher price points. In fact, the technology is so good, it's already being used to create realistic CGI garments in movies like The Hobbit and video games like Call of Duty.

Click over to Fast Company for the full story, and tell us: Could a virtual mirror ever replace a real, live try-on for you? (Fast Company)