I remember not a year has gone by since I first saw that Xbox commercial where they were launching a game console driven solely by capturing the player’s movement. Here, watch it if you haven’t –> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2qlHoxPioM There’s a particular part where a young teenager is chatting with her friend over the app and picking out an outfit for a party. She pulls up one of the dresses to the screen and then just poses with the image of the dress over her body.
This all seemed a bit out of hand, and barely a year after it’s not only being used for and with the Xbox console, many other major brands are using the same Virtual Dressing Room in their webpages. Just this morning for example, I saw a poster behind a Ray Ban kiosk at a mall presenting its new Wayferer collection. The new eighties meet twenties look. I decided to check out their web 2.0 version of the ad and what do I find? The Virtual Dressing Room http://www.ray-ban.com/usa/science/virtual-mirror The site basically works out by you turning on your webcam and just standing in front of the image of the sunglasses. Just like if you tried them on.
Now, based on the fact that the Xbox commercial was a year old, I reflected upon the fact that this trend isn’t brand new. So, I kept on searching for other virtual mirrors. H&M came out on my query with this one http://www.geeksugar.com/HM-Lets-You-Try-Clothes-Via-Virtual-Model-Yourself-Your-Measurements-1723758 You don’t just stand in front of your webcam, you create a virtual self: an avatar.
Sometimes you don’t see things until you are ready to see them. Here they’ve been for not long, but yes, it’s not hot out of the oven either. Have you tried on your virtual goods? Have you bought them based on what you see in these fictional dressing rooms? What has been your personal experience?