Dresslife co-founder and CEO, Dr Julian Hensolt, discusses AI capabilities and how they can make the apparel supply chain more sustainable.
As a US$3tn global industry, fashion is one of the biggest global markets. It is also one of the largest industrial polluters, contributing around 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions due to its long supply chains and energy-intensive production (UNFCCC).
Dresslife Inc was therefore born out of this need to improve supply chain sustainability. “If we can improve this by even a small percentage, it would have a massive impact,” says Dresslife co-founder and CEO, Dr Julian Hensolt. “We aim to enable retailers and customers to produce and shop more efficiently.”
Dresslife is a San Francisco, California, US-based technology company that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to create an app that examines a potential wearer’s personality, behaviour, style, brand preferences and body fit to provide a digital recommendation of several outfits, from various retailers, in the hope of finding consumers ‘fashion that fits’. The goal is that consumers find something they are less likely to return, which will improve supply chain sustainability.
From automotive to textiles
Hensolt is originally from the automobile industry having worked at German multinational automotive corporation Daimler AG where he also wrote his PhD dissertation. “Over the course of my research, I examined different supply chains and noticed that the fashion industry is one of the least innovative,” he says. “Apparel continues to be produced in batch sizes, returns are between six and 16 times higher in fashion than in other e-commerce sectors and 75% of the clothes in our closets are worn less than four times in a lifetime.
“So, I decided to transfer the findings of more innovative supply chains to fashion, and then began thinking of ways to make improvements,” continues Hensolt. “There’s never been a better time for innovative fashion technology solutions than now.” As a result, he adapted his supply chain management skills to start Dresslife and enter the apparel market in an attempt to modernise the supply chain and bring more in line with the automotive industry.
“The automobile, as a product, is more complex and expensive than an item of clothing,” he says. “So, keeping many products in stock – like in fashion – is not an option. Cars are primarily made built-to-order, hence there is a higher transparency across the entire supply chain; from sales, demand-planning, purchasing and up to the last supplier.” Whereas in fashion, “a designer draws up a sketch, and demand planning estimates the production volume. The item then goes into production. At the end of a season, that number rarely matches the actual consumer demand. That’s why each year, the fashion industry faces a big challenge with over-stock and out-of-stock inventory.”
However, with the rise of more evolved AIs, “startups like us, who introduce concepts to foster change, have a real chance to solve the major issues of this industry,” says Hensolt. Though this is not without its obstacles. “While fashion may be an ‘easier and cheaper’ product, its supply chain is at least equally challenging,” he continues. “There hasn’t been an efficient solution to offer made-to-order production.” And this is because fashion production and its supply chain has not changed much in the last 50 years. “It has not been possible to effectively predict consumer demand, because there is very little transparency around customer and garment data,” he adds. Also, changes in consumer behavior are frequent, unlike that of apparel manufacturing, and current consumer trends require a fast time-to-market.
“We believe it will be possible to produce fashion on-demand in a profitable way,” says Hensolt. “You need to understand the products really well, achieve full customer transparency and build tools that allow you to match products with customers. This will enable you to design, produce and ship clothing without high numbers in returns or costs in product design.”
In the short-term, this will considerably improve conversions, returns and over-stock/out-of-stock issues based on the existing production process, while laying the foundation for the ultimate goal of made-to-order production, according to Hensolt.
Evolving the apparel supply chain
Dresslife targets the fashion retailers and brands that are innovative and demand new technological solutions. “We seek to collaborate with the ones that already understand the potential of one-to-one personalisation and its benefits, such as revenue increase and return reduction,” says Hensolt. “Our challenge is testing the waters with each of these companies for a short amount of time, in order to find the perfect position from where to scale quickly. In doing that, we always aim to create the best solution catered to each retailer’s or brand’s specific needs and expectations.”
Using AI, the company aims to improve the apparel industry in terms of sizing and competitive user experience, contributing to a ‘future of fashion’ in which fewer returns are made, and where there is a more personalised way to discover and shop online. “We use AI to make it easier for shoppers to discover and purchase items they love and that fit,” says Hensolt. “We are able to recommend the right fit of any item of clothing to online shoppers across brands and product categories.
“Our technology enables one-to-one personalisation for fashion with exceptional accuracy, by integrating human feedback into a specifically-developed AI,” continues. “The goal is to elevate conversions and reduce returns to a competitive level. Global marketplaces push one-to-one personalisation and already reach a revenue uplift of 35%. Our technology allows fashion retailers to establish a competitive user experience and avoid losing market share to the large global platforms.”
As well as this, Dresslife technology can also help in terms of sustainability within the supply chain. This is because the data can be collected at each stage with the use of AI. Hensolt says: “Data fuels everything. The fashion industry has huge potential to utilise its data more efficiently.”
The lack of data collection and analysis is one of the reasons there are huge amounts of overstock in the market which even leads some companies and brands to burn their inventory. “Our tools help analyse all the data and generate incredible insights for more effective planning and for a better understanding of the consumer,” says Hensolt. “We believe this will be the basis for the future and will have an immense impact on fashion and apparel production.”
With its current technology, Dresslife is in the early stages of utilising AI’s potential for the fashion industry. “We believe the apparel industry will benefit from this technology for many years to come,” adds Hensolt.
