The idea of going bra shopping used to be a long way down Heidi Zak’s list of priorities.
“The way that a woman normally gets fitted for a bra is that there is an older lady who is going to measure you with a measuring tape,” she explained. “A lot of women don’t feel comfortable with that process [and] don’t get measured so they don’t know their true size.”
However, Zak may have found a modern alternative to the ritual of getting sized up in the dressing room of a department store - using iPhones to calculate the dimensions of a woman’s bust at home.
Technology developed by Thirdlove, the San Francisco-based bra company which Zak co-founded, can work out the appropriate bra size for a woman through photos she has taken in front of a mirror.
“We are providing the fitting mechanism from the comfort of a woman’s home without her needing to interact with anyone else,” Zak said.
The technology not only means women can avoid the awkward trip to the department store, but it stops them wearing bras that are uncomfortable and not the right fit. As many as six out of every 10 women suffer from this problem according to surveys.
The sizing technology works via an iPhone app. To use it, a woman must take two pictures of themselves while wearing a tight fitted top in front of a mirror. The phone is held at the bellybutton and a picture is taken from the front and the side. Software developed by Thirdlove then draws up measurements by calculating the distance between the mirror and the contours of the body.
“I can detect the size of her body in relation to the phone and then we infer a circumference and a body shape from that. In essence what we are getting is her overbust, her underbust measurement and her body shape, which is the same thing a bra fitter gets in a store,” said Zak.
“Through our technology we understand what sort of phone [iPhone 4, 5, or 6] you are on. From there we understand how far you are from the mirror based on the size of the phone and then we can calculate a woman’s body in relation to the phone itself. In essence, when you think of a women in the store getting out the measuring tape, we are doing that using a phone as a standard unit of measure.”
When the pictures have been processed, the women is shown the measurements of the bust and a recommended bra size for Thirdlove’s range of products, which includes half sizes.
The use of the smartphone in calculating sizes represents another step in bridging the gap between traditional clothes shopping and e-commerce.
In Sweden, a company called Volumental has developed software that can estimate the exact size of a foot using cameras. Customers can then use these details to make bespoke shoes.
So far the growth of online clothing sales has failed to match initial expectations. About 15 years ago it was expected that online sales would account for between 40% and 50% of clothing sales by now, but the actual figure is less than half these projections according to Zak.
One of the main reasons for this is that shoppers cannot establish the fit of clothing through a website. As a result, return rates for online clothing can average between 30% and 40% for retailers. “Bras are the most extreme category because fit is everything,” Zak added. “Exchange rates are really, really high.”
However with tools such as Thirdlove’s, Zak says people will become increasingly comfortable buying clothes online. Thirdlove’s return rates are now less than 5%, with one-in-three bra sales coming through the new sizing technology.
Nonetheless, some women are still sceptical that finding the correct bra fitting can be solved by an app.
“I have had many, many women say to me ‘I totally can’t believe this will actually work’,” says Zak. “They try it because they are being ‘this is crazy, of course this is not going to work’. Then they get a size and it is a half size and it seems really right.”
Problems can emerge when the phone is not held in the right way, meaning the gyroscopes in the device cannot record the proper measurement. “It is more accurate than a measuring tape assuming someone follows the directions properly. There can be user error, a lot of it has to do with holding the phone at the right angle,” she said.
Prices for the bras range between £33 ($49) and £46 with a shipping fee of £17 applying to orders from the UK. Each bra lasts an average of about a year.
The clothing is functional, according to Zak, and it should mean that women no longer have to take off their uncomfortable bra as soon as they get home at the end of the day.
The initial scepticism about having a bra fitted via a mobile phone seems to be reducing: the technology is being used by roughly as many women over the age of 45 as those under that age. Thirdlove has so far received £3.83m ($5.6m) in investment.
You can read our archive of The innovators columns here or on the Big Innovation Centre website where you will find more information on how Big Innovation Centre supports innovative enterprise in Britain and globally.
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