Two students from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH), Fayçal M'hamdi and Pietro Zullo, have developed a virtual fitting room. M'hamdi and Zullo developed the plug-in by the name of Alter Ego at the ETH Student Project House, where budding academics work to substantiate and test their ideas and concepts, further details of which can be found in a press release issued by ETH Zurich. The solution allows online shoppers to see on their screens whether an item of clothing fits them in the sizes offered.
All that is required for this is a full-body photo and the user’s height. Alter Ego then creates an avatar with the corresponding body measurements. No app is required for this process, and the plug-in could be available directly in online shops.
As the two students explain in a video, nearly one third of all clothing ordered online is sent back due to customers selecting the wrong size. The issue here is that transport, cleaning and quality control result in additional costs of up to 30 percent for retailers, while these processes also consume as much CO2 as the Netherlands every year. In addition, many of the returned textiles are often destroyed.
“My hope is to see this project become a reality”, comments Zullo in the video. “And for me basically it would be to just start shopping online I would say”, adds a laughing M'hmadi.
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