Tobi.com a fashion apparel website has launched an augmented reality dressing room for their customers to “try on” the clothing directly from the website and then save and share their flare on their social networks via the “Fashionista Augmented Reality Application“. This is all done via augmented reality, motion capture, and real-time personalization.

Fashionista Augmented Reality Application photo shared on Facebook profile

The companies behind this application are none other than RichRelevance which is a leading provider of next-generation personalization and product recommendation tools for enterprise-class eCommerce sites, including Sears.com, BassPro.com and Walmart.com along with Zugara which is an interactive marketing company focused on emerging media and technology. Zugara is also a member of the Augmented Reality industry guiding “AR Consortium”.

Zugara first introduced this application back in June 2009 on their Youtube video example. Now Tobi appears to be taking on this application for their customers. What is interesting to note is that not only does this application open up the doors to allow users to interact directly with the merchandise, but it allow the user to then take a snapshot photo and share it with friends within their social networks.

“… friends still play an important role in influencing consumers. Eighty-three percent of online shoppers said they are interested in sharing information about their purchases with people they know, while 74 percent are influenced by the opinions of others in their decision to buy the product in the first place. Zugara and RichRelevance are excited to give retailers a new way to connect shoppers with their peers, and make the online shopping experience more like the offline: social, personal and engaging.” said Zugara CEO Matthew Szymczyk

How It Works

According to the press release, Fashionista creates a totally individualized and engaging customer experience from three core components of emerging media, technology, and eCommerce:

• Augmented Reality combines real-world and computer-generated data where computer graphics or objects are blended into real-time footage. With Fashionista, images of clothing are merged with live video of the shopper.
• Motion Capture recognizes and records an individual’s movements and integrates them into an on-screen model. With Fashionista, hand motions enable the user to virtually navigate backward or forward on screen to select clothing, indicate preference, and take a photo.
• Personalized Clothing Recommendations deliver a highly engaging and individualized shopping experience based on the current shopper’s session as well as “wisdom of the crowds.” With Fashionista, a stream of recommendations that leverages multiple recommendation types is displayed and updated based on immediate user feedback on preference.

Below are two current demonstration videos from Tobi.com and RichRelevance.

Tobi Virtual Dressing Room

Fashionista Demo