Optitex
Empowering Fashion Businesses with Digital Inspiration

The fashion industry is undergoing a fundamental shift. More products, with a greater variety of designs are being created and shipped more frequently, all at ever-decreasing price points. This places pressure across all links in the fashion value chain.

Optitex’ 2D/3D solutions for virtual products offer the ability to convert these challenges into opportunity. With its innovative solutions, Optitex is changing the way the fashion industry designs, develops, produces and sells–resulting in valuable time and cost savings.

“In this industry, it's all about speed. Collections with shorter cycles are growing at double the rate of the traditional longer-cycle collections,” says Asaf Landau, CEO, Optitex. “What Optitex does is allow businesses to develop closer to season, which enables them to be more aligned with consumer trends. It also means they can have more seasons and smaller production runs, mitigating the risk of over-production and the consequent markdowns.”

Digital transformation within a familiar workflow

The transformation is done via an integrated 2D/3D digital clothing platform with a powerful simulation engine. This gives designers the ability to create beautiful 3D digital clothes from 2D patterns, with real-to-life fabric simulation.

In terms of workflow, the Optitex platform allows fashion brands to use the same processes they have been using until now for sketching designs and making patterns. But, rather than making physical samples, they are able to make digital samples first. This means they can correct and adjust designs even before the first piece of fabric is cut.

Thus, instead of sending real sewn samples back and forth between the suppliers, fashion designers, tech designers, patternmakers, and other stakeholders, the brand can now create, view, and edit the initial samples via the software.

Preventing over-development, over-production, and markdowns

The digital clothing created by Optitex’ user-friendly 2D CAD and 3D simulation solutions can be leveraged in numerous manners across any fashion brand.

This includes: shortening product development cycles by up to 40 percent; enabling brands to review an entire collection, in all colorways, within 2-4 weeks of design sketches (instead of 3-6 months); and facilitating buyer feedback on collections within days of design, to help prevent over-development of items that will not make it into the line.

According to Landau “It is the impact on the top line that is really interesting–being able to show designers, buyers and even customers the collection within a couple of weeks of design sketches instead of several months later. This way they can clarify which styles in the collection will be the hits, double down on them, and even develop more similar styles.”

One company’s experience says so much

According to Landau, one US customer reported that using the Optitex solution enabled them to reduce the number of rounds needed to create the first prototype, saving a significant amount of time and money. Thanks to this quick process, the company was able to visualize complete garments in just three days, instead of waiting 6-8 weeks for a fabric swatch, and six months to see the garment in all colorways. Fit issues were also identified earlier, delivering additional savings. Further savings are expected by the Marketing and Sales department, which plans on using virtual samples in lieu of photo shoots for the company’s website and marketing materials.

Coming up: cloud-based collaboration for fashion development

Further Optitex innovation is expected to reach market soon in the form of a Virtual Product Platform (VPP). This cloud-based solution focuses on the industry's most important business processes, such as visual collaboration between the brand’s stakeholders and manufactures, where both parties can look at the same 3D images. The platform will enable brands to leverage the existing 3D virtual products across various applications such as: virtual collection planning, virtual product development, virtual showrooms, and virtual dressing rooms, where consumers can try on different outfits, both online and in-store, without touching a physical garment.

All of this will continue to help brands and clothing manufacturers reduce over-development, optimize product development, enhance shoppers’ experience, engage with customers through all sales channels, and ultimately increase profitability.