Toward a new fashion concepts design tool: The vMannequin framework

IT offers significant tools to foster innovation in the fashion industry. Although the products have a low information content, the information content of the overall development and production process may be rich, specially for high end productions, and the same happens for ancillary processes connected to sales and after sales. In this paper we present the vMannequin framework, designed to assist the sales process by means of an interactive computer graphics assistance system that allows a customer to virtually explore, live or remotely, his experience with a chosen outfit, with possibility of customization. vMannequin is based on off the shelf systems, and is then applicable also to the small business segment, providing new ways for business development.