News: Holographic Fitting Rooms Are Here with HoloLens & Pictofit

If you've been longing since the '90s for the total Clueless experience of virtually trying on clothes, you missed out by not attending London Fashion Week earlier this year.

Designer Sabinna Rachimova is known for her "see now, buy now" business model that allows clients to immediately purchase items from her collection after shows. She took this idea one step further with London Fashion Week this past February. Partnering with HoloLens, Fashion Innovation Agency (FIA), and Pictofit, she created a mixed reality shopping experience with a virtual closet populated with her newest collection.

The HoloLens was used as a "creative tool to explore styling different pieces of the collection virtually before purchasing," as TECHstyler puts it. Clients could mix and match different pieces of the collection on a holographic mannequin, and below is what one of those shoppers would see through the HoloLens.

To capture the pieces, FIA used a 3D scanner consisting of "64 high resolution DSLR cameras" to map out the clothes and the model.

Pictofit then provided a "virtual fitting room" for the users at the show, allowing them to "try on" the clothes on a virtual version of themselves. The clothes even adapted to the shoppers' body shapes.

Check out the full process of creating the holographic clothes in the video below.

The CEO of Pictofit, Stefan Hauswiesner, was inspired by the project as it showed a tangible everyday use of augmented reality.

Augmented reality has the power to change how we interact with fashion. From the outfit decision in the morning to buying clothes online, we want to see how we are going to look. We want to be inspired, try different combinations and ask our friends what they think.

This use of AR has started at the top of the fashion industry, but its not hard to see how it could easily work its way down to the mainstream. Many people hate shopping solely because they hate trying on clothes, and this technology could eliminate that step completely. AR may still be trying to find its footing with the average consumer, this is definitely one way it could make its way to the masses in the future.