This article on fashion-tech predictions is part of our Vogue Business membership package. To enjoy unlimited access to our weekly Technology Edit, which contains Member-only reporting and analysis and our NFT Tracker, sign up for membership here.
The mood around innovation going into 2024 calls for practicality: tech will need to prove itself, following past hype cycles around singular technologies.
Brands will innovate with specific goals in mind — not specific buzzwords. Developers will be tasked with answering what value new technologies provide, rather than defining what they mean. In this way, many of the words used to define hot topics — including “Web3”, “AR”, “phygital” and “metaverse” — will continue to fade out of use, even if the underlying technologies continue to proliferate. There is one exception; any project that includes the broad category of artificial intelligence is likely to emphasise AI’s role.
At the same time, these concepts will blend, with AI being an underlying theme. E-commerce tech will lean on digital goods, mixed reality and AI; and augmented and mixed reality will use AI to become increasingly realistic.
E-commerce recalibration
2023 ended in a whirlwind of chaos at fashion e-commerce companies, setting the stage for more rocky resettling in 2024. Matchesfashion was acquired by Frasers Group for £52 million (after being valued at around $1 billion in 2017). Farfetch was acquired at a market cap of about $254 million (down from $26 billion in 2021); new parent company Coupang injected a $500 million lifeline. The sale has already had fallout effects on Yoox Net-a-Porter, as a planned deal for Farfetch to acquire a majority stake in the company from Richemont is now scrapped. And questions remain about what the new ownership will mean for Farfetch Platform Services (FPS), the company’s white-label tech offering that counts clients throughout fashion — but the need for better tech remains. What does it say that a company dedicated to using technology to become “the global platform for luxury” can’t succeed?
This year, the tension between multi-brand e-commerce and direct-to-consumer efforts will intensify. Brands will invest even more in their own tech capabilities, in store and online. Multi-brand retailers, meanwhile, will attempt to compete with styling and recommendation tech, and invest in automated logistics to cut costs.
Expect data science to receive renewed attention as businesses toggle between attempting to own the entire customer journey and leaning heavily on third-party platforms, says Sophie Abrahamsson, president of Americas at video commerce platform Bambuser. The right choice won’t be obvious. Those with first-hand access, she adds, risk over-extending resources, providing a sub-par experience and alienating customers. “Gen Z, in particular, is acutely aware of inauthentic initiatives,” she says. However, those who outsource benefit from a wider reach and pre-built tools, yet risk removing themselves from decision-making and access to customer data. “It’s crucial to strike a balance with both third-party applications and direct-to-consumer options to avoid overdependence and maintain ownership of their customer interactions,” she advises.
As brands juggle new data-privacy needs with personalisation tech — such as how to reconcile data disclosures with AR try-on, or digitise a consumer’s likeness while gaining permission to store body dimensions — they will innovate in how they acquire first-party and zero-party data. Convincing clients to willingly provide helpful information about themselves creates what M7 Innovations founder Matt Maher calls “passive personalisation”, because it enables experiences “that feel intuitive, not invasive”, he says. “This will usher in a new era of brand loyalty that can be tiered out based on activity, engagement and spend.”
“Today’s CMOs are focused on finding ways to do more with less,” Abrahamsson says. Cost-saving efforts will be viewed through a tech lens, expanding to features such as virtual try-on (to reduce returns) and digital fashion experiences that provide consumer feedback before clothing enters production. Cost-saving tech can also reduce waste. “I expect that sustainable technologies will be an exciting area of innovation in 2024, from the development of even more environmentally friendly materials to the development of systems and processes for producing garments in a manner that is less damaging to the environment,” says Ginna Bibby, partner and head of international law firm Withers’s global fashion tech practice. Efforts to provide personalisation and reduce waste might improve via on-demand or just-in-time manufacturing, but don’t expect an overnight upheaval.
Artificial intelligence pushes limits
The AI era will continue, introducing a renewed focus on old uses (algorithmic recommendations, predicting trends), and new solutions to old problems (editing images and writing personal messages). AI will “continue to be used to increase customer engagement, manage supply chains and facilitate the design process”, Bibby notes, adding that brands “will still need to be hypervigilant about using AI in a manner that does not violate copyright or data privacy and protection laws”. AI innovation doesn’t live in a silo, but its ever-growing prominence warrants its own mention in 2024’s fashion-tech predictions. “If 2023 was the year of announcements and aspirational AI, 2024 will be the year it becomes actionable,” Maher says, calling it the “most transformative technology of this decade”.
With new regulations from global governments, generative AI especially will face both scrutiny and experimentation. Brands will navigate new transparency requirements and new protections for their own intellectual property. Don’t be surprised if a brand gets unwittingly caught up in an AI-related misstep: perhaps a transparency disclosure might be left off when an AI model underhandedly steps in for a human one, or an ad campaign could give someone six fingers. Maybe an autonomous customer service chatbot will go off the rails, or an AI-generated design might overstep another’s intellectual property.
There will also be a serious reckoning about jobs: what is the process of upskilling, and what (or who) can be replaced? Which processes are improved, and which ones deteriorate when not carried out manually?
Brands are likely to see an opportunity to cut costs on copywriters, graphic designers and customer service agents, as these are among the creative tasks most impacted. However, others say that the more menial aspects of these roles will be improved, meaning that humans can focus on high-touch tasks; for example, AI can help e-commerce companies grow their styling and personal shopping offerings. Stitch Fix is already helping their stylists become more efficient with AI-aided, personalised style notes that are sent to each customer. The field of modelling is also primed to feel impacts, as top models such as Eva Herzigová and Kendall Jenner are digitising their likenesses while less well-known e-commerce models are finding their roles recreated with AI. Brands will also recruit or train creatives in the new skill of prompt engineer, in which the talent of envisioning creative ideas will continue to be a competitive advantage.
Maher advises caution and common sense. “Brands can’t wait for governments or trillion-dollar tech giants to create AI guard rails. While there are 1,000 AI solutions currently looking for problems, don’t take the bait. Instead, self-audit and deeply understand the business problems you are trying to solve. Then buy, borrow or build the applicable AI solutions, all through an ethical and moral lens.”
A renewed “vision” for digital objects
At the end of 2023, searches for “smart glasses” soared as reports that Apple’s first mixed reality headset, the Apple Vision Pro, was set to become available to consumers as early as February, and Meta announced plans to update its smart glasses to recognise objects and offer information (including styling tips). While distribution of these devices remains relatively niche, it offers a clear example of how technologies including mixed reality, virtual assistants, ambient computing and computer vision might be interesting to the mainstream consumer — without needing to define any of these terms.
Even before consumers can use the Vision Pro, developers and brands have been working on use cases; expect these to come to light this year. Fashion games could come alive with mixed reality headsets, or virtual billboards might add a more engaging digital layer to the outside world. (Just don’t expect many people on the front row to replace their smartphones with smart glasses; even though the tech exists, the habit does not.)
High-profile uses and tests of Apple’s new tech will drum up the curiosity around complementary technologies more broadly, providing a boost to digital fashion and immersive experiences — even in in-person environments, such as stores. According to CB Insights, at the end of 2023, the only retail tech that saw increased funding was in-store, while funding for e-commerce and logistics had decreased.
Retail screens and mirrors could be due an interactive upgrade. AR, increasingly enhanced by AI, “has moved beyond being a niche”, says George Yashin, CEO of AR company Zero10, which has worked with Coach, Tommy Hilfiger and Macy’s. “Numerous companies are gearing up to create ecosystems around AR, aiming to dominate the market with interconnected gadgets, applications, software and platforms,” he says. AR mirrors enjoyed successful tests last year; this year, expect brands to expand beyond one-time integrations, Yashin says.
Putting the “fun” in non-fungible tokens?
Crypto and NFTs aren’t expected to jump out of the ashes, but just because you don’t hear about NFTs as much doesn’t mean that brands aren’t still experimenting. Brands are simply hiding the wires, Maher says. He expects many luxury brands to continue leveraging the digital mechanics of Web3 “without mentioning the stigmatised components by name”.
Again, practicality is key, even if it’s housed in a fun package. Perhaps a major music artist will offer digital merch through physical tees, or there will be some other cross-industry collaboration that brings mainstream token-holders to the world of Web3. The looming digital product passport rules in Europe provide an added incentive to digitise physical goods. Expect brands to attach NFTs and digital identities to physical things to increase transparency, invent new loyalty drivers and further circularity initiatives. Eon’s “instant resale” offering is particularly compelling — perhaps more brands will use NFTs or digital identities for this use.
As DressX’s Natalia Modenova recently told Vogue Business, just because you don’t see it, doesn t mean it’s not happening. “A ‘digital good that provides authentication and exclusive experiences’ is the same as ‘an NFT on a blockchain delivering token-gated access’,” Maher says. “One just sounds better than the other.”
To receive the Vogue Business newsletter, sign up here.
Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.
