ICT technology for innovating the garment design process in fashion industry

The Italian fashion industry is nowadays subject to radical transformation; therefore, it needs to remain competitive and, at the same time, innovate itself, in order to strengthen its position in the global market. An important opportunity of innovation can be the introduction of ICT technologies in the garment design process, which today is based on traditional methods and tools. Moreover, this innovation could be particularly important for online sales, in order to reduce the customers’ doubts during purchasing. The research presented in this paper describes a framework for designing clothes as realistic 3D digital models and for allowing customers to evaluate the designed clothes by using realistic virtual mannequins of their bodies instead of the standard ones. A case study will be presented in the paper. The obtained results show that the framework can innovate the traditional garment design process and it could have a huge impact on fashion industry and customers behaviours.