ZILIO, a virtual fitting room service, launches its pilot on Denimsmith for online shoppers to use, starting off with the “Quinn Jean” range.
If anyone else has had to send a pair of swimmers back a dozen times before they fit, they’d be as excited as me to see this tool make its way into our lives.
ZILIO aims to paint a full picture of how a garment will fit on a body in every size. Because while we’ve seen a push towards diversity in casting, if your body resembles anything besides a pair of chopsticks, online shopping remains a minefield.
With 1 in 3 online purchases being returned, the tool aims to save businesses trillions too. Seventy per cent of these returns relate to sizing, fit or style, showing how desperate we are for a tool like this.
In 2019, Forbes brought to light that due to seventeen billion items being returned yearly, we’re producing 4.7 million metric tonnes of CO2 each year. The pandemic has made this worse in recent years. In the United States alone, five billion pounds of returned goods ended up in landfills (The Guardian, 2020).
ZILIO aims to address all these concerns and it’s 360° Garment Fit has made it a favourite in awards circuits too. Since it’s launch ZILIO founder Anthony Kwok won B&T’s “30 Under 30 Entrepreneur award” and ZILIO was shortlisted as a finalist for BOLD Awards: FashionTech and BOLD Awards: Young Achiever.
To date, ZILIO is live in Denimsmith, has nine LOIs from fashion brands and has run a successful pilot trial/accuracy test with the fashion label BY BETTINA LIANO in 2021.
After all this excitement, we were disappointed that this tool is currently only available for men. But Kwok reassures us that a women’s collection will be dropping soon.
