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HONG KONG — Today, personalization generally means adding a monogram to a handbag or choosing the color of a dress.
But tomorrow, as several industry leaders said at The New York Times International Luxury Conference in Hong Kong last week, the walls between a traditional brick-and-mortar store and digital retail will crumble away as smart technologies that collect data about customer preferences are used to create a truly singular shopping experience.
In his opening keynote, Qiu Yafu, chairman of the Ruyi Fashion Holding Group, predicted that the fashion world would undergo a significant transformation as companies tap big data and other technologies to make consumers the center of what he called the ecosystem rather than at the end of the chain of raw materials, manufacturing, retail and commerce. As a result, he said, concepts like fashion seasons, which dictate design schedules and manufacturing cycles but don’t make sense with varying climates and temperatures across the globe, will fade away.
Indeed, Mr. Qiu said that Ruyi — founded in 1972, one of China’s leading textile manufacturers and the owner of several fashion brands, including Sandro and Maje — was undergoing its own transformation from a textile business into a technology company.
“Why shouldn’t we sell luxury whenever the customer demands it?” he asked.
Actually, said Ian Rogers, chief digital officer at LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world already has moved past an era of mass communication. “ ‘Market of one’ might sound utopian and science fiction, but it already exists,” he said. “Open your phone, look at your Discover feed in WeChat or your Instagram feed. You are the only person who sees that feed. That feed is created specifically for you, every single time you open it, including the advertising.”
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