VOOR 3D Unveils VR Showroom
May 2020
Happy Friday Everyone- Here at IFD we are thinking of you during this unprecedented and unpredictable time. Todays read is about Voor, a virtual showroom created prior to Covid-19, but now even more relevant as a method to show product. This is a good tool for brands to share their product, and a good article for learning about what the future of fashion looks like. Thank you to Tracy Wong and her team for sharing their work.
As the pandemic brings traveling to a halt and decimated engagement between business partners around the world, Voor is launching their virtual reality merchandising showroom solution, in its first beta.
The solution has been developed to help fashion designers and brands in reducing the time and costs involved, as well as alleviating some of the highly damaging impact the industry has on the world, in a true and meaningful way.
The beta version of Voor’s VR showroom launched April 2020 via Voor’s mobile app, however the platform will eventually be offered across multiple platforms that will include a web-app and Oculus.
This launch will be particularly beneficial to fashion businesses around the world facing current challenges and its ensuing dynamics, as the industry will be altered forever in the wake of this pandemic.
Any fashion reformists, fashion environmentalists, or anyone simply waddling out of this crisis, hoping to come out with a more agile business, head over to voor3d.com.
To keep pace with modern advancements, to calibrate with the environment, and to restart after this global pause, the age-old fashion system is ripe for disruption.
Prior to the pandemic, fashion was already at the critical moment of its transformation, signalled by rising production costs and consumers’ preference reaching critical mass for social and environmental values.
The word “digitization” was at the forefront of fashion executive’s minds since at least 2018. Unfortunately, fashion’s complex nexus of stakeholders across its value chain, with its tight revolving deadlines, has been a major barrier to implementing digital strategies. But with the global pandemic’s shutdown of in-person interactions, the time to transcend to a digital first mind-set is now.
According to The State of Fashion by McKinsey & Company, consumers, especially younger cohorts in particular, are willing to pay more for products that have less negative impact, with a third of Generation Z in the US saying they will pay for sustainability compared to around one in 10 baby boomers. It’s no secret anymore that the industry is the second most environmentally damaging in the world, accounting for over 10% of the world’s carbon emissions, was the second-largest consumer of water, and regularly pollutes the oceans with microplastics. Although the recent rise in using eco-friendly and recycled materials are helping to improve the industry, but no materials are truly sustainable as the procurement of such still generate carbon footprints. Speaking ahead of the beta launch, Voor founder Tracy Wong added, “No actions are truly sustainable unless they’re carbon neutral or negative. So for businesses, any output that will eventually become wastes is no true sustainability. Businesses should prioritize eliminating waste whenever possible and streamlining processes, for both their bottom line and the sake of the environment. ”
Leveraging on virtual reality, Voor’s digital showroom facilitate visual communication and integration along the value chain by delivering virtual showrooms with merchandising capabilities pushed through Voor’s mobile app.
The traditional process is linear, inefficient, and wasteful:
With Voor, the process is synchronous, agile, and sustainable:
The beta version features basic merchandising capabilities that allow viewers to instantly visualize colors, patterns, textures, and other design variations in full 3D. Users will be able to pick from pre-set showrooms to present their designs in. In the eventual full rollout, users will be able to fully customize showrooms that would unleash their brand identities.
For any brands and designers interested in trying Voor showrooms, more information can be found at voor3d.com. Voor is also currently open to partnerships with manufacturers and on-location showrooms.
About Voor 3D
Based in New York City, Voor3D set out to remodel the fashion business model to be efficient, cost effective, and truly sustainable. Founded by Tracy Wong, a 10+ years fashion professional, and joined by a founding team of seasoned garment professionals, game enthusiasts, and techies, Voor3D offers VR merchandising showrooms for the garment industry to digitize processes downstream to design.
