The fashion industry is not a place for the faint-hearted: there's competition, aggressiveness and, well, hate, usually covered up with smiles and air kisses. In such an environment it is often the case that the ruthless ones prevail, that's why Amazon is likely to have a great future in fashion.
The American multinational company founded by Jeff Bezos and globally known for treating its human workers like temporary and disposable materials soon to be replaced by robots, started small in 1994. First it sold only books, but, little by little, CDs were added and more products followed. In the last ten years the company developed further, spreading its tentacles to all sorts of aspects of commerce and human life.
At the moment Amazon produces its own films and series, sells facial recognition technology to law enforcement (around three months ago researchers from Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and some top US universities called on Amazon to stop selling it to the police as its algorithms are flawed and appear to have high error rates for darker-skinned and female faces) and hosts web services for different clients, including the US Department of Homeland Security. The company also owns 1/3 of the world cloud computing services and controls 50% of American ecommerce. So, for Bezos' Amazon taking over fashion may not be so difficult.
The conquest of the fashion industry started a while back, but became more tangible over the last two years. In 2017 Amazon first launched The Fix, an in-house accessories label available exclusively to the retailer's Prime customers that seemed to feature more copies than original products, then it developed a clothes line - Find - accompanied by an advertising campaign that looked modern and trendy.
Rumours spread in the meantime about the Internet-based retailer developing a "fashion designer algorithm" employing a tool called generative adversarial network (GAN) that uses two deep neural networks to remember the characteristics of specific styles and trends.
Yet leviathan-like Amazon didn't surrender: last year its fashion team came together for the Calvin Klein x Amazon Fashion NYC Market, an event that combined a digital and physical experience, and launched a pop up men and women's wear shop in London, while Japanese fashion fans were lucky enough to be able to buy on Amazon Japan selected pieces developed in collaboration with conceptual designer Anrealage.
In June 2019 Amazon announced StyleSnap, an AI-powered feature that helps you shop (and that is not entirely new given that also Asos has a similar service): you take a photograph of an item you like in a store or on the street or a screenshot of a look clicking on the camera icon in the upper right hand corner of the Amazon App. Then you select the "StyleSnap" option, upload the image and StyleSnap produces a list of recommendations for similar items available on Amazon (obviously influencers on the Amazon Influencer Program are also eligible to receive commissions for purchases they inspire...).
More fashion-related news spread in the last 48 hours, as Amazon has just launched a personal styling service for Prime members.
Called Personal Shopper by Prime Wardrobe and available in the US market for the time being, the service starts with a survey in which customers can highlight their preferences when it comes to fit, trends, colours and prints, and add measurements, body shape, sizes (the service covers a wide range os sizes - 0-24 and XS-XXL/3X, and for women's shoes in sizes 5-12) and budget.
The Prime Wardrobe's stylists then analyse the data and edit a special style profile. Consumers can also get in touch with the stylists via the Amazon App, and come up with more suggestions regarding brands. Clothes are then selected and up to eight pieces are sent to the customer in a monthly box. It is possible to see the items before they get shipped to avoid too many returns. Consumers can keep the clothes for seven days and they will only pay for what they keep, the unwanted clothes can be send back in the original and resealable box with an adhesive prepaid return label.
The service costs $4.99 a month for Prime members (shipping and returns are free) and it is only available for women (but men's Personal Shopper should be available soon - in the last few weeks there have been adverts on job search sites looking for Amazon menswear stylists in London and Tokyo...).
In a way the service is similar to the one launched in 2011 by Stitch Fix, with one main difference, as stated above, consumers can preview the clothes that will be shipped.
There is also another key difference between Prime Wardrobe and Personal Shopper: the former allows a consumer to fill a box with items to try on at home (but it can be a difficult and overwhelming experience given the amount of products on Amazon), but Personal Shopper provides a tailor-cut shopping experience and saves consumers time as it will be the Amazon stylists helped by algorithms who will pull from over half a million items across thousands of brands including 7 for All Mankind, Calvin Klein, Levi's, AG Adriano Goldschmid, Rebecca Taylor, Champion, adidas, Amazon Essentials, Daily Ritual, and many more.
Further Amazon fashion-related news include an Amazon Fashion digital television channel available through Prime video, and also a designer competition series in the style of Project Runway (with one judge - Italian influencer Chiara Ferragni selected to grab the attention of the younger and maybe more gullible fashion fans).
Last but not least, there's The Drop, a recent adventure (inspired by the modus operandi of cult brand Supreme...) first announced in May and consisting in a selection of limited-time streetwear designs designed by fashion influencers made on demand to supposedly reduce waste and available for 30 hours only on Amazon (accompanied by an always-on-sale collection entitled "Staples by the Drop" - so what's the point of reducing waste if then you produce more...).
And talking about influencers, the company has also got its own Instagram page - Amazon Fashion Instagram Picks - that pulls popular items from the social media platform.
Will Personal Shopper by Prime Wardrobe change further the habits of consumers? Who knows. Amazon's enemies will probably see this as part of teh company's wider efforts to try and rule the lives of people, keeping on expanding in more fields and becoming a sort of capitalist nation on its own.
Time will tell if Amazon will tell us who to vote for one day, but maybe politics can wait for the ecommerce giant: the conquest of the fashion industry seems to be the company's main priority for the time being. It is actually very likely that Bezos' company will become a stronger online fashion contender for many high street brands also thanks to the affordable and trendy products included in some of its lines, while it may have to rethink its more superficial influencer collaborations as The Drop offer has so far been rather bland and banal. Maybe the path to fashion success for Amazon does not stand in these lines, but in the possibility of combining its high tech innovations with exclusive products by proper fashion designers as Amazon Japan did with Anrealage.
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