Smart Tech: Exploring AI-powered solutions at the Première Vision Paris show The - Première Vision Paris - Denim Première Vision - Première Vision New York
In the ever-evolving landscape of fashion and textiles, technology stands as a pivotal force driving innovation and sustainability. At the next Première Vision show, industry leaders will showcase a myriad of tech solutions designed to revolutionise various facets of the fashion supply chain. This article delves into how these advancements will impact following five key areas: creation and design, production and logistics, marketing and consumer service, and traceability.
Creation and design: Merging creativity with technology
The integration of technology into the creative process is transforming how designers conceptualise and develop collections. Advanced tools are enabling more efficient and innovative design practices.
First of all, trend prediction. AI has become instrumental in forecasting fashion trends. By analysing vast datasets, AI can predict consumer preferences, allowing brands to tailor their collections accordingly. For instance, Heuritech employs AI-based visual recognition technology to analyse big data panels, providing brands with insights into consumer demand. This approach does not only help in producing more accurately what the market really desires, thereby reducing overstock and waste – most importantly, it empowers brands and designers to make informed choices. Informed choices backed by rational data. It actually opens the perspectives of possibilities, and puts the decision in the hands of humans to go, or not, with the « flow », to position or not in what is the « fashionable » or not.
In regard to the design part itself, generative AI is accelerating the process increasingly. MYTH AI offers a proprietary generative AI solution that creates unique, trend-driven patterns and artworks, in a speed gain of 90%, delivering outputs tailored to brand identity. Unlike open-source platforms, MYTH AI ensures precision and security through blockchain-backed certification, safeguarding crucial intellectual property while driving sustainable creative innovation.
Going further in the creation part, deeper into textile creation, 3D-Printing and fabric scanning are is revolutionising the creation of intricate designs and prototypes. Stratasys, a leader in 3D printing technologies, offers 3D Fashion™ technology, enabling designers to print directly onto textiles. This innovation allows for the realisation of complex designs that traditional methods cannot achieve, promoting unique and customisable collections. It is also a very interesting option to explore to upcycle a garment, by e.g. printing or embellishing a little stain or hole, giving it not only a personal touch but also extending its lifecycle. Additionally, companies like VVC 3D provide comprehensive solutions encompassing 3D fabric scanning, material digitisation, and on-demand manufacturing. Their suite of digital tools assists brands in enhancing design workflows and presenting collections more efficiently.
“Though AI-driven automation and computer visualisation are increasingly augmenting human intelligence and creativity, luxury brands have not fully embraced tools that up-skill employees. Everything related to creativity remains delicate, and confidentiality, linked to security within processes is a crucial concern”.
Production and logistics: streamlining for sustainability
Advancements in production and logistics are pivotal in creating a more sustainable fashion industry. Digital Product Creation (DPC) 3D tools allow designers to simulate multiple versions of a garment without physically producing each prototype. This process would not only speed up the creative design process, but also considerably reduce overproduction and the waste resulting from unused models, if commonly adopted and integrated in the new workflows.
At the forefront of this transformation are at the same time eco-design, agile supply chains, and inventory optimisation.
Institutions like the Institut Français du Textile de l’Habillement (IFTH) offer solutions for eco-design, assisting brands in integrating sustainable practices into their products and collections. By focusing on innovation, product performance, and less impactful textiles, IFTH supports companies in reducing costs and optimising production timelines.
Vestis Labs provides a digital platform that streamlines the design and development process, enhancing efficiency and fostering collaboration. Their solutions include collection management systems, integrated digital IDs for transparency, and digital product development services aimed at reducing waste and speeding up development.
In today’s dynamic fashion landscape, agility and flexibility are critical. Companies like Pattern Project Ltd, with their Manny AI platform, empower fashion enterprises to transition seamlessly to small-batch, weekly ordering with existing suppliers, promoting resilient and flexible production networks, in a very novel approach to (micro) factory optimisation.
Autone offers an AI-powered inventory amelioration platform that synthesises real-time data analytics with predictive technology to fine-tune inventory accuracy and efficiency. This proactive approach reduces excess inventory and ensures products are available when and where they’re needed most, addressing common challenges in retail stock management.
Marketing and consumer service: Enhancing engagement
Technology is reshaping how brands engage with consumers, from personalised marketing strategies to innovative design tools that cater to individual preferences.
Refabric utilises generative AI-powered software to facilitate the fashion cycle from ideation to marketing within a unified ecosystem. By analysing a brand’s DNA and historical data, Refabric creates trend-compliant collections swiftly. Their Photoshooting feature streamlines the fashion photo shoot process, allowing designs to be showcased on AI models, reducing costs, and expediting timelines. They are working from sketch to design, pattern creation, fabric integration up to e-commerce photoshoots.
Traceability: Ensuring transparency in the supply chain
The very complex yet essential challenge of transparency, as demanded by consumers as much as needed for compliance to upcoming DPP and legislation, has become a cornerstone of sustainable fashion. Technological solutions are enabling brands to provide detailed insights into their supply chains.
TextileGenesis is reshaping supply chains with a fiber-forward, tokenised solution that ensures transparency, authenticity, and compliance at every step, in blockchain digital traceability. Their platform allows consumers to trace the journey of their garments from farm to finished product, fostering trust and informed purchasing decisions.
In the same vein, Retraced offers a traceability and sustainability compliance management platform that digitises supply chains, manages compliance data, and achieves full transparency down to raw materials. By connecting all stakeholders, Retraced enables efficient collaboration for data collection, analysis, and reporting on working conditions, materials, certifications, and environmental impact.
Companies like La Belle Empreinte and Fairly Made® provide not only platforms for environmental impact calculation, but are also offering brands guidance and the expertise to measure and optimise environmental impacts from the earliest design stages. These tools support data-driven decision-making, ensuring more sustainable choices are embedded into product development.
Greenly offers a collaborative platform for accurate, affordable carbon accounting, simplifying data collection and analysis through integration. Their services extend beyond carbon footprint assessment, including Green IT, life cycle analysis (LCA), and compliance with initiatives like SBTi and CSRD.
The solutions presented at the Première Vision show exemplify how technological advancements are addressing the challenges that the fashion industry faces, creating ways to address creativity but also flexibility and agility. It has to be coupled with smart material choices and a true shift in the business approach, to really be steering the fashion world toward a more responsible future.
Read also: Fashion meets AI: The next step in material innovation