Reutlingen-Stoll has partnered with Swiss retail technology company Meepl, which specialises in 3D smartphone body scanning software, to offer fashion industry custom made-to-measure knitwear on a global scale.
This unique collaboration is said to be a first for the knitwear fashion market – combining sustainability with personalization.
Coupling Meepl’s 3D body scanning software with Stoll’s knit and wear flat knitting technology, the aim is to provide a customer-centered approach to the historical problems around personalised clothes. It will enable knitwear to be customised at an automated and scalable level using the highly accurate measurements of meepl fed directly into the knitelligence software controlling the Stoll machines.
Meepl’s founder and CEO Ferdinand Metzler said the partnership means the Swiss company will be able to offer a tailor-made shopping experience to knitwear consumers across many global brands. “By combining our state-of-the-art technologies, we can offer an unparalleled service that addresses sizing and quality of fit, bringing us closer to achieving our goal of eliminating standard sizing once and for all,” he said. “From a sustainability point of view, both ourselves and Stoll feel passionately about reducing landfill when it comes to the disposal of clothing garments. We hope that by harnessing our technologies to match supply and demand we will be able to eliminate issues with overstocking and reduce retailer returns.”
Previously, the knitwear industry had struggled with inefficiencies in making-to-measure sizing, relying on manual measuring methods and human input that is prone to error. Meepl’s smartphone-enabled 3D body scanner technology uses body reconstruction algorithms to create a virtually 100 percent accurate body picture from just two photographs, instantly providing up to 100 body measurements.
A significant global growth in demand for knitwear products has occurred over the past few years, with a new survey identifying knitwear as a large segment of the apparel industry. Stoll ‘s consumers, including leading brands such as Adidas, Nike and Marc Cain, will be able to build on this development by providing greater precision in sizing with the 3D technology of meepl, resulting in improved consumer experience.
“With Meepl’s easy-to-use and accurate body scanning technology the consumer’s personal body measurements can easily be connected to our knitelligence platform,” Stoll said. “The platform automatically adjusts the knitting pattern based on the body measurements being provided making it possible to knit tailored garments in a very short time without any manual intervention. For the first time ever, this combination of technologies makes it possible to offer mass customisation for everyone from the convenience of their homes.
“Both Meepl and Stoll are paving the way in their use of technology in the production of garments for the fashion industry. The partnership will offer an unrivalled experience for the end-user in terms of both accuracy of sizing and quality of fit, leading to a level of automatic customisation of knitwear which can be scaled to a level that to date has not been achieved.”
SOURCE: KnittingJournal
