Fashion avatars put Winchester students one step ahead

Fashion design students in Winchester are creating avatars of themselves to make the perfect-fitting clothes – and to stay ahead of the fashion industry curve.

The students at Winchester School of Art are on the only Fashion Design course in the UK that is using AI to mirror the physical and digital processes of making new clothes.

The students are working with an AI creative program called CLO3D to create custom-made, perfect-fitting clothes.

Third year student Grace Cowan, 21, said: “The amazing thing about CLO3D is it allows you to create a garment digitally and be able to view it from all angles – even from above, which you cannot do on photoshoots with a model. It is also brilliant for learning to digitally drape by changing the weight and stiffness of fabrics, so you can experiment without generating waste.”

CLO3D enables designers to work out clothing sizes based on real bodies, creating an avatar according to body measurements. It boosts sustainability as it cuts the need to create lots of samples of items before achieving the best fit.

Matthew Coats, Senior Teaching Fellow in Fashion Design, said: “This technology is massively changing how the workflow for the design and production of fashion garments operates.

“We are teaching our students to work with it through all elements of the workflow, from initial design to final product. It’s ensuring our students are at the cutting edge, but also experimenting with CLO3D in a way that the industry itself does not have time to do, it’s too fast paced. It’s one of the few areas where universities have the opportunity to be ahead of the fashion industry.”

He added: “What’s unique here is how we are mirroring the physical and digital processes. Often these are kept separate, but we are teaching students to do both – create both a physical and a digital pattern, try it on both physically and on their avatar, and understand the differences, allowing for direct comparison.”

Mr Coats worked as a designer at Chanel in Paris for several years, including under the direction of Karl Lagerfeld. “The UK fashion system is way behind Europe,” he said. “This technology is out there and being used across Europe – and should be used here in the UK too.”

For the students, CLO3D is helping them to understand bodies and the connection between physical and digital.   Second-year students have used CLO3D to make a pair of custom-fit jeans.

Emma Barrington, 20, said: “Using CLO3D has been a big learning curve but I have enjoyed it, and the sustainability element is a big plus.”

Dylan Zhao, 21, said: “Fashion is all about experimenting, so it is really helpful to use CLO to try things out.”