Shine OnBody-scanning booth helps you find jeans that fit your booty
Jean shopping can often be a daunting task -- trying on pair after pair, only to be disappointed when they're too tight in the hips, gaping in the back or just not flattering to your figure. And since sizing varies so much from store-to-store, it's nearly impossible to go into a dressing room without three sizes of every piece you're interested in. Thanks to companies like London-based Bodymetrics and Toronto-based Me-Ality, however, this particular type of shopping frustration might be a thing of the past.
Last week, the Bloomingdale's store at Westfield Century City mall in Los Angeles put a Bodymetrics body-scanning booth on its store floor for a four-day trial, which in seconds, digitally determines body shape and then recommends the jeans that will fit best. According to Women's Wear Daily, Bodymetrics is already a household name in the U.K., where a smaller version of the booth has been helping people shop for jeans for the past eight years at Selfridges.
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"Jeans are one of the hardest garments to fit," says Suran Goonatilake, chief executive officer of Bodymetrics, to Women's Wear Daily. "A woman can spend hours or days trying to find jeans that fit. We cut down that time massively."
The company is also strategically partnered with denim manufacturer TAL Group, which has reportedly made $1.5 million per year from being paired with the scanning technology at Selfridges. Goonatilake tells Women's Wear Daily that 90 percent of the shoppers who use the Bodymetrics booth say it has helped them find the best-fitting jeans, and 60 per cent of those people end up committing to the purchase.
"Bodymetrics body-maps you within a few seconds and gets hundreds of accurate measurements and analytics of your shape," says Goonatilake in a company press release. "Then, we match this data to the exact dimensions of a garment and allow you to virtually try it on your own body to see whether it is too tight, too loose or just perfect."
Until last year, body mapping equipment was too pricey for it to be mainstream, reports Women's Wear Daily. But with Microsoft Kinect's drastic drop in hardware prices recently, Bodymetrics plans to take advantage with major expansion into the U.S. The company plans for at least 100 booths going into U.S. retailers in the next two years, and eventually making them self-serve, with stores paying a licensing fee to have one.
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Bodymetrics isn't the only company offering this fitting room of the future. Canadian brand Me-Ality (Measured Reality) has its own 3-D body scanning system that records measurements of clothed shoppers in 10 seconds using radio waves and then recommends a selection of clothing pieces and sizes from a variety of stores and brands.
A press release from the Canadian company explains how it helps shoppers: "The free Me-Ality scan identifies the fit, style, design and cut that best match an individual's measurements. The process, which takes just 10 minutes to produce a personalized shopping guide of denim and pants, recommends the best sizes to buy and where to purchase the items at the mall."
According to Women's Wear Daily, this technology is in 40 malls currently, with plans of expanding with at least 300 more units placed strategically around North American shopping destinations.
Sounds nice, doesn't it?
