Digital Transformations in the Apparel Value Chain for Mass Personalization

Abstract

Mass Personalization (MP) is being adopted in the apparel industry to provide customized product solutions to the customer. Customer co-creation is the key opportunity provided during the initial design phase. The best way to evaluate these new products is to create virtual prototypes based on the digital environment. Therefore, this article examines the digital approaches to the development of apparel prototypes by systematically reviewing the literature. The findings reveal that existing digital approaches are primarily aimed at visualizing a new product based on a 3D avatar created using scanned body measurements of a customer, although user experience is required for evaluation. The most important factor in the design process is the digital solutions to enhance the user experience of the new product (comfort of clothing) in its infancy. Therefore, this study explores digital technologies used in other industries to get an understanding on the possibilities of adopting the same in the apparel industry.