RP311 The Magic Mirror

 RP311 The Magic Mirror

What if customers could try on their favorite clothes in a store without having to enter a dressing room? Or better yet, without leaving their bedroom? Technological advances are allowing us to do just that. This new shopping experience could be coming to a mall near you sooner than you think.
This new technology is called a "virtual dressing room." Imagine standing in front of a full-length mirror that shows your reflection and also lists the clothes available for purchase. Customers can browse through clothes with a simple downward motion of their hand. Clothing selected by a customer will appear virtually on top of the customer's reflection. Customers can now see what the outfit looks like just as it would in real life. If the customer doesn't like the color, all he or she needs to do is point at a different part of the mirror and select a new one.
Though this sounds a lot like science fiction that will be arriving sometime in the distant future, this technology is here today. Virtual dressing rooms are already being put to use in department stores around the world. Topshop, a world-class clothing chain store, has implemented virtual dressing rooms that use Microsoft's Kinect technology in its Moscow branch. Macy's department store in New York City experimented with the technology in 2010 when it built a "magic mirror." The installation allowed customers to try on anything in the store. If they liked how they looked, they could post an image of their new virtual outfit on their Facebook page. Customers who used these virtual dressing rooms found that it saved them a lot of time. It allowed customers to sort through the items they were interested in by narrowing their search to the clothes they like the most.
While it's true that this technology is starting to appear in stores around the world, it's still far from perfect. For one, the clothing's image can look unnatural and doesn't always give a good feel for the real thing. Not to mention, the technology has no way of informing the customers of how the clothes will actually feel on them.