BRACE yourself for Robo Frock. A fashion algorithm which will style you. First, let’s remind ourselves that an algorithm is a formula for solving a problem, used in computer science.
But how does a formula solve fashion problems? Here’s where things get harder to understand than the point of this season’s long pleated skirts.
A fashion algorithm is a search engine for fashion items powered by artificial neural networks. Using those neural networks (me using that expression is like a nerd wearing Chloe – no one is comfortable) the algorithm recognises styles from nearly a million photos, so that if you see a celeb on the red carpet, and you say, "Hey, Robo Frock, get me Gwyneth’s heels", it will hunt through its database and get back to you with a celeb lookalike wardrobe option.
And it’s not just photos you see online, or in magazines, that you can feed into it. If you’re looking particularly ritzy one day, a woman passing on the street might snap your sweater, feed the image into the algorithm, let it rummage through its photographic files and come up with something similar, and where she can buy it. Get ready to be papped on the pavement.
(And it might not be women who photograph your top. Blokes too. "Just wanted to buy a present for my girlfriend and your top would suit her so much." Uh huh.)
But might this style algorithm also help in the morning as you hastily work out what goes with what? In which case, can the fashion algorithm talk to your iron, to know if something is pressed and ready to wear? Or the washing machine? Soon, all your appliances will be talking behind your back and your apartment becomes like Mean Girls.
If your scales get in on the act, then the algorithm will know which garments to rule out based on that morning’s weight. And does it speak? Does it feature a Style Siri who will say: "Your bum looks big in that."
"Yeah, well, Style Siri, your neural network could do with being slimmed down too."
So who exactly has devised this style formula? The answer is SK Planet’s Machine Intelligence Lab in South Korea
Are their computer scientists stylish? Are any computer scientists stylish? In person, no. In code, why should it be different? An algorithm, then, is a terrifying future. A fashion code red.
Robo Frock – my name for it – will be commercially available at the end of 2016. History suggests there will be implications for the fashion business. Remember when high street stores ripped off designer looks, and the designers themselves then launched cheaper fusion lines?
Surely now copycat algorithms will be launched by big brands to ensure results point to their clothes? Get ready for:
CodeCode Chanel.
Algorithm by Armani
VBot by Victoria Beckham
Anyway, tech would better serve the fashionable man or woman by creating a robot that can do the washing and the ironing and folding. A Domestic Bottess. I’d buy that over Anna Wintour in algorithm form.
Computer science does have a role to play, though. How many fashion algorithms will it take to change the light bulbs in changing rooms? They’re too damn bright. Internet of Things, turn them down.
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