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Facebook’s new program virtually dresses you

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Facebook is in the process of developing practical Artificial Intelligence that will digitally dress you and offer advice on how to make you more ‘fashionable’.

Remember that scene in Clueless? Right at the beginning when protagonist Cher is scanning through her closet database on an archaic PC to find the perfect look for her first day at school? Well now, it’s basically a reality.

I’m aware that Facebook isn’t exactly all the rage anymore, but in yet another attempt to draw us back in, the social media giant is rolling out a new virtual styling feature that just might tempt us.

Dubbed ‘Fashion++’, the experimental project aims to help inform our fashion choices with a tool that’s designed to scan the web and make sure we know what’s currently trendy and what’s not.

Is it set to change our morning routine forever? Operating like some sort of constructive criticism robot, the programme will make minimal adjustments to our outfits without making us feel as though we’re that unfashionable.

Providing us with subtle suggestions rather than recommending, for example, that we go out of our way to buy an entirely new outfit, I think it’s kinda innovative.

It’ll tell us to swap one or two items, like the shoes we’re wearing or the accessories we’ve opted for. And even goes as far as advising things as specific as tucking in our shirts or rolling up our sleeves. Crazy right?

So, how does it work? The system will use a so-called ‘discriminative fashionability classifier’ trained on over 15,000 images of outfits from the internet as a source to determine what’s the most conventionally stylish.

The not-so-stylish is then ‘bootstrapped by swapping garments on the fashionable examples with their least similar counterparts,’ explains Facebook.

Once it’s trained, the outfits are updated and a ‘deep image-generation neutral network’ renders the new look onto a generated silhouette.

In other words, the Fashion++ algorithm will digitally dress you while taking care of any questionable choices you might’ve made (without going full extreme makeover).

Image result for clueless computer

In an effort to take the fashion world by storm, Facebook believes that this is different to existing apps with similar motives as it helps you tweak your existing outfit rather than sending you on a shopping spree.

‘We all know that the drive to buy more, instead of playing with the garments we already have in our extensive wardrobes, is really harming the planet,’ said Daisy Murray, a writer at Elle UK.

Personally, I think it has the potential to change the game, especially in our fight to be more eco-conscious as we’re not being pressured to spend more on fast fashion and contribute to the industry’s sustainability problem.

Plus, it’s already proving to be quite a hit. In a study involving 100 test outfits and almost 300 people, 92% said their outfits were more fashionable after using Fashion++ and 84% said it was pretty spot on with modifying what they already considered stylish.

Sorry to get stat-heavy but according to Facebook the results are very promising. And they’re planning to go further ‘using wider social media platforms like Instagram, biasing an edit towards an available inventory, and generating improvements conditioned on an individual’s preferred style or occasion.’

Facebook is becoming far more than just a social media platform these days, and this is a great example of how AI is being used for more creative purposes.

I reckon that in a few years, we’ll be fully immersed in the next era of fashion tech. While I definitely believe that everyone should dress the way they want no matter whether it’s ‘fashionable’ or not, wouldn’t it be kinda cool to have a personal stylist that we don’t even need to talk to?

‘Everyone deserves to feel self-assured and empowered in what they wear when they walk out the door,’ said Murray. ‘But any efforts to help people feel more confident, whilst working with the clothes they already have, are fantastic in my books.’

I’m excited to see whether or not this takes off. The concept of being dressed by a machine is indeed a little daunting, but if Black Mirror’s anything to go by, it’s not the only thing that we should be expecting from the future.

Feature Media Manager & Senior Writer London, UK

Sofia (She/Her) – I’m the Deputy Editor & Media Partnership Manager at Thred, specialising in exclusive articles and live interviews, fashion and beauty with a focus on sustainability, women’s rights, psychedelics, and Latin America. I studied Spanish at the University of Exeter and International Journalism at City, London. Follow me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and drop me some ideas/feedback via email.

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