Rihanna’s Lingerie Disruptor Believes in Fitting Room Technology
Savage X Fenty believes it can solve a common problem for many of its customers—finding the best-fitting bra.
The Rihanna-founded lingerie company is expanding its partnership with 3D body-scanning technology platform FIT:MATCH to upgrade the in-store fit experience.
Shoppers use Fit Xperience to get a full scan inside a Savage X Fenty store fitting room. The technology incorporates Intel’s RealSense technology and the Intel Distribution of OpenVino toolkit.
The lingerie company launched with an earlier version of FIT:MATCH in brick-and-mortar stores last year, including Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Houston, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. Back then, store employees used iPhones equipped with Lidar body-mapping technology to scan shoppers in the privacy of fitting rooms. The technology took just seconds to access information suggesting bra styles, sizes and brands catering to the consumer’s body shape.
But the new experience that launched at Atlanta’s Lenox Square Mall location on Feb. 11 brings the mobile scanning concept to the entire fitting room. Fit Xperience incorporates augmented reality (AR) computer vision technology and artificial intelligence (AI) all in one for a new fitting room experience. However, people can still choose to get scanned by a store employee if they prefer the 1.0 experience.
“As we thought about this experience, one thing that we pushed ourselves on was how can we make this faster? How can we actually make it more accessible?” Haniff Brown, CEO and founder of FIT:MATCH, told SJ. “And how can we make it such that several people can do this at the same time and make it as easy on the store as possible? That’s why we decided to take a step to integrate the technology into the fitting room itself to create that atmosphere and that environment where as many people can do this as possible in the easiest way as possible.”
Shoppers who take part in Fit Xperience step into the fitting room where Intel RealSense depth sensors create an anonymized avatar based on their exact body shape. The technology then compares the shopper’s body to its database of digital twins—thousands of bodies that were scanned previously—before recommending the best-fitting products. The recommendations are powered by AI from Intel OpenVino.
Brown told Sourcing Journal that the collected body shape data isn’t based on traditional measurements, saying that multiple people can have the same measurements and still order an ill-fitting bra.
“We realized that we’ll never be able to figure out fit via measurements, no matter how complex the sizing chart is, because tissue density, volume and shape are bigger determinants of fit,” Brown said. “Two people can have the same measurements, but one holds her tissue density in different ways than another, so her size is much different. And so that’s why we went down collecting these shapes in this manner, and our algorithms find the closest shape in the database to you. We then use that person’s data and information to make recommendations.”
A TikTok video posted by @jazymee gives an up-close look at the Fit Xperience, detailing the steps to finding her best fit bra. “This grand opening was the best,” she wrote. “[T]he vibes were immaculate, clothing was sexy and customer service was top tier. Come give Robyn [Rihanna] Fenty your coins y’all!”
“Fit Xperience has been a game changer in merging the physical and digital retail brand, especially at a time when fit and comfort in your body is so important,” said Christiane Pendarvis and Natalie Guzman, co-presidents of Savage X Fenty, in a statement. “Our diverse Savage X Fenty community has benefitted tremendously from Fit Xperience—we’ve received overwhelmingly positive feedback about individuals feeling confident as they shop our products in store. With this new iteration of Fit Xperience, we’re excited to continue providing a seamless and positive shopping experience for everybody.”
The new Fit Xperience also works with an expanded assortment of products, including sports bras, leggings and more from Savage X Fenty’s new Sport collection.
“One of the main reasons why we’ve been focused so much on intimates and bras is because we have a patented technology that works really well with it, and it’s a really hard to fit category,” Brown said. “Our thought process is obviously that if we can solve it for this category, the other categories are definitely in play.”
The TechStyle Fashion Group-owned lingerie disruptor closed a strategic investment in FIT:MATCH last year to accelerate expansion of the augmented reality-powered technology. The company has raised $10 million so far in two rounds, with the other investment coming from Savage X Fenty’s sister brand Fabletics. FIT:MATCH aims to solve the fit challenges that have plagued brands and consumers by using body shape data rather than just standard measurements.
Brown said Savage X Fenty’s investment was a huge win for FIT:MATCH, because the brand views in-store technology not just from a commercial lens, but also as part of its core innovation strategy.
“Because they’re such great UI/UX experts, and because they’re marketing geniuses—look at their metrics, look at their engagement—they’re able to dig in and see elements of the technology that will make it really thrive,” said Brown. “In full disclosure, as a technology provider, that insight, and that ability to have that sort of knowledge base on what will likely work for the shopper and what they would mostly gravitate towards, has really been invaluable in how we build the product.”
On its website, FIT:MATCH said the Fit Xperience has quadrupled conversion rates and sent average order values up 20 percent. It also touts a 40 percent higher units per transaction rate and claims it has doubled loyalty program subscribers.
Last March, Brown highlighted the Savage X Fenty partnership as the best decision that FIT:MATCH had made in the past year, indicating that the firm “didn’t see the right body-scanning technology on the market for our enterprise partners, so we decided to build it ourselves and partner with [the brand]…to launch the technology.”
To close out the year, FIT:MATCH announced a partnership with Macy’s, after it deployed the mobile version of its technology in the intimates departments in nine of the retailer’s stores.
“Unique and personalized shopping experiences are the future of retail for both the end customer, and business owner alike,” said Alec Gefrides, vice president of Intel’s Network Edge Group. “Fit Xperience’s use of computer vision and AI inferencing at the edge is an industry innovation that can significantly help to increase overall shopping accuracy and customer satisfaction, resulting in better business outcomes for fashion—and tech—forward labels like Savage X Fenty. We are pleased to see how Intel technology is helping to make this modern, in-person shopping experience a reality.”
FIT:MATCH uses depth sensors, and not cameras, to generate a mapping of a consumer’s body shape while also keeping the experience private. The process takes less than 30 seconds from beginning to end, the company says, saving more time both for the shoppers and the store associates.
No videos and pictures are taken or stored, making the technology GDPR (general data protection regulation) compliant in the event FIT:MATCH works with any European brands. Scan data is processed without transferring any bio-identifiable information to the cloud. When the Lidar scan is finished, the 3D point cloud avatar is used for processing and all other elements are deleted on the device within seconds.
“We take privacy extremely seriously, and we are focused on providing the most private and secure experience, both for the shoppers as well as for the brands,” Brown said. “It’s not a shopper issue only, it’s the brands. They have a reputation, they have risk assessments, and so forth. I also think that there are many levels of trust to prove as you scale a solution like this. What we want to do is have relationships in the ecosystem with brands.”
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