This will use a few chips:
(unless it's another Great Idea That Noone Buys)
October 18,
Lands' End Bets a Computer
Will Help You Get the Right Fit
By REBECCA QUICK
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
NEW YORK -- At this moment, technology is not my friend.
I'm standing in a tractor trailer next to the World Trade Center, clad only in a borrowed pair of skin-tight underwear. Around me, a strobe-lit computer scanner flashes beams that measure 200,000 data points on my body. The results are not pretty -- but more on that later.
Consider me a fashion guinea pig of sorts for cataloger Lands' End Inc. Armed with high-tech portable dressing rooms, the company this week kicked off a 14-city cross-country tour in an attempt to convince thousands of shoppers to drop their drawers and strike a pose for the computers. The goal is to create virtual models with customers' exact body dimensions so they can "try on" clothes in cyberspace and see how they fit.
It's a pretty good idea, in concept. Internet clothing sales, after all, have been less hearty than many banked on in the early days of online shopping. The biggest obstacle: How can you tell if something fits if you can't try it on?
Subsequently, customers have often plunked down cash online for clothes that didn't look nearly as good on their body as they did on the Web. Catalogers face a similar problem, but it's worse with online shopping because consumers are skittish to begin with about dropping dollars over the Internet.
Virtual You: At left, a Lands' End model is scanned by a computer that takes 360 degree measurements of her body. Right, a traveling dressing room; Above, prototype of a shopper's virtual body when displayed online with selected clothing from Lands' End.
Other online retailers have tried to solve the try-on problem before. For some time, Web sites, including Victoria's Secret.com (victoriassecret.com), have allowed visitors to enter their self-taken measurements and then computed the appropriate bra size. But the Lands' End scanning technology is supposedly a more precise technique that can design a virtual model with measurements within one-eighth of an inch of the original body -- more precise than any human tailor could manage. Levi Strauss & Co. uses the same technology in its flagship store, and other retailers are expected to follow. The hope in the industry is that eventually shoppers could take their virtual bodies through a whole cybermall of dressing rooms.
Having unsuccessfully tried to purchase properly-fitting clothes myself on the Internet, I'm game to give the technology a try. So here I stand, the last of nearly 100 visitors to tromp through the Lands' End dressing rooms on the first day of this trailer's maiden voyage. The first step is to watch a video of a staff member being sized up by the computer, which reminds me of Hal, the evil machine that takes over a spaceship in the sci-fi classic movie 2001.
Even from the start, there are warning signs. "I'm not as big as that makes me look," my tour guide whispers to me as we watch the strobe lights flash across her body on the video screen. This should be my first clue to walk away, but I accept a computerized card and trudge on.
The card lets me into the actual scanning chamber. Only one dressing room has access to the scanning chamber at a time, my chirpy guide assures me, so I should have complete privacy. Except for the talking computer.
On the way to my dressing room, we stop to pick up the tight, uniform underwear required by the scanner. My first question: Has this been previously worn? (No, the underwear is mine to keep.) The sporty underwear-and-bra sets are stored in different bins, from small to extra large. I suspect I need something from the medium bin, which is marked for sizes 4 to 6, my usual size. A helper sizes me up and hands me a pair from one of the bins. It's an extra-large.
I want to protest this injustice, but my guide is pressing ahead, reminding me to take off everything -- including any jewelry -- and to pay attention to the talking computer. Next, she gives me a handful of hair clips and ponytail holders. Hair must be piled high for an accurate reading of the neck, chin and shoulders. I strip down and slide my computer card through the door key, wondering how many pairs of sweaty, bare feet have passed this way before mine (96, I am told later).
A mirrored door at the back of the dressing room slides open, and an eager male computer voice beckons me into a dark, hidden compartment. The voice tells me to place my feet in the footprints painted on the floor, grab the arm poles extending from the side walls, and stare at the upper right corner of the room so the computer can get a good look at me. I might want to close my eyes because of the flashing lights that will soon follow, the computer warns before reminding me to keep very still.
I suck in my gut, close my eyes and push the red button near my right thumb to signal I am ready. Dance music floods into the chamber as strobe lights begin to flicker. It's like being in a downtown club for a few moments, except it's freezing cold and lonely. After about 15 seconds the strobe lights stop, the computer tells me my test is finished, and I wander back into my dressing room.
Before I can even pick up my socks, my test guide is knocking at the door to tell me the scan didn't work. My hair must have slipped, she says. I look in the mirror and feel the back of my neck but find no loose strands. "Let me in," she says, and I'm discombobulated enough to comply.
Now a woman I've known for six minutes is pushing bobby pins into my head. Meanwhile, I'm still barefoot in the gratis underwear. My only solace is that she was in the same position on a giant video screen just a few minutes ago. I hope none of the executives who conned me into this situation wander by the open door of the dressing room.
Take two. The mirror slides open, and I again assume the position. This time I forget to suck in my gut. Hal must like that, because this time the scan takes.
The next step, after I get dressed, is to punch some even more intimate details into the computer. "Go away," I growl to the crowd of bystanders as I type in my weight. Next the computer asks for my skin tone (fish-belly white), my hair color (dark brown naturally, but more of a blonde brown since my last visit to the hairdresser) and facial shape (oval). Hairstyle is a bit tougher. I have long hair, but the closest option the computer offers is a straight, above-the-shoulder cut with goofy looking feathered bangs. (My apologies to those who do wear this hairstyle.)
Finally, the computer offers three different outfits ranging from casual to office-wear. I choose the professional looking pantsuit and hit the compute button. Big mistake. When they morph the clothes onto my virtual body, my hips look HUGE. Oh my gosh, I think, I had no idea this is how I look. The jacket, which flares out at the sides, only exacerbates the situation.
I start to protest about what is surely a computer malfunction, but the staff members disagree. No, no, the drawing looks just like me, they assure, as they print up a copy of my virtual model. I scowl.
The sales staff promises that by the next day, my fatso computer likeness can be downloaded to the Lands' End Web site, where I can (gasp) rotate my virtual model by 360 degrees. For now, I haul the printed out version of my virtual-self around the office where kind colleagues assure me that my rear really isn't that big. I want to believe them but figure, hey, computers don't lie.
Thinking about the 38-inch battleship hips assigned to me by Hal, I wonder how many consumers will actually subject themselves to this invasive process. Though company executives say they think computer sizing removes some of the more unpleasant aspects of in-store shopping -- such as cranky salespeople and cramped fitting rooms -- it's still unclear to me whether standing in a digital chamber with flashing lights is any less uncomfortable.
Lands' End e-commerce chief later apologizes for horrifying me, though he doesn't dispute the technology. "It's kind of like hearing yourself on the answering machine," says Bill Bass, senior vice president for e-commerce at Lands' End. "You never think you sound that way."
I'm so dejected that I spend hours sighing and contemplating diet plans until finally, a colleague convinces me to take a tape measure to my hips. They measure 34 inches -- nearly four inches less than Hal has marked for me. Well, perhaps these computer body scanners are not as accurate as their creators believe.
Emboldened, I head for Barneys New York for a second opinion. There tailor Alexandra Ammar (my new best friend) takes my measurements again, letting me keep on all my clothes. As she circles my body, she explains that it's probably shrewd for Lands' End to add in extra inches because shoppers tend to keep clothes they order that are too big vs. those that are too small. Maybe, but I'm still overjoyed when she tsk-tsks at several of the computer's measurements. In the end, she marks my hips slightly smaller, my bust slightly larger and my legs slightly longer.
Call me a Luddite, but from now on, I'm sticking with the hands-on approach -- human hands that is. |
