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Unpacking Kalypso’s 2024 Digital Adoption Research
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Emma and Ben speak to Kalypso’s Digital Product Creation and Transformation Lead, Sophia Lara, to unpack the findings of this year's digital adoption research and ask whether DPC is ready for the deep end.
Download the full findings from Kalypso: https://kalypso.com/files/docs/2024-Digital-Adoption-Research-3.pdf
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Transcript
Introduction & Research Overview
00:00:33
Speaker
you know, your clear milestones and what decisions you're making at each milestone. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Interline podcast. I'm your host, Emma Felton-Bastine. Today, I'm talking to Sophia Lara, digital product creation and transformation lead at Calypso, and Ben Hansen, our own editor-in-chief at the Interline. In this special episode, we're discussing the results of Calypso's 2024 digital adoption research.
00:01:02
Speaker
This is the latest version of an annual analysis that Calypso has been running since 2016.
Research Methodology: One-on-One Interviews
00:01:07
Speaker
This makes it a real and lasting yardstick for understanding how 3D and digital product creation, or DPC, is progressing in fashion. As you'll hear Sophia explain, they've taken a bit of a different approach this year, directly interviewing leaders in the DPC space. And the key takeaways from those conversations form the basis for the discussion we're having today.
00:01:28
Speaker
Together, Sophia, Ben and I take a deep dive into Calypso's comprehensive research, discuss some of the key obstacles and possibilities around DPC in detail, and flesh out some actionable strategies that brands and retailers can use to overcome challenges and also get the most out of their 3D and DPC ecosystems.
Leadership's Role in DPC Initiatives
00:01:48
Speaker
Over to that conversation now.
00:01:50
Speaker
Let us start with the first question, which is to Sophia. Can you please tell us um about what Calypso has been doing differently with its research into digital adoption this year? Yeah. um So thank you for having me. I'm excited to talk about our adoption survey this year. So this year we did it a little bit differently. Last year we sent out a survey and um you know, like we've done every year and we noticed that everyone was really marked at like a four or five in terms of digital capabilities. And what that really showed us was that
00:02:22
Speaker
People are really into digital product creation and they're starting
Automation Challenges & Digital Maturity
00:02:26
Speaker
to scale it. But what we wanted to get after this year was the details because those vary so differently between company to company. So this year we went a little bit differently. and We partnered with the 3DRC, the 3D Retail Coalition, and we were able to do one-on-one interviews with top leaders within ah you know different companies across.
00:02:47
Speaker
the industry to really get after how they're looking at things, what the unique challenges are and to try and get some more detailed insight into what is happening with digital product creation in retail.
Interoperability & Connectivity in Product Development
00:02:59
Speaker
Fantastic. Thank you for that. Very concise and really interested to hear what you found. um And let me turn to Ben and say, let's start running through the findings from Calypso's report with the top-level orchestration and direction of digital transformation programs and how important leadership and executive sponsorship is to success.
00:03:21
Speaker
So based on Calypso's research, um it seems that this can go a couple of different ways. ah Senior leaders can be successful at supporting the communities through change and aligning their DBC initiatives with wider business transformation projects, or they can set unrealistic expectations and set confused or uncertain visions for what they want to accomplish digitally. What do you think are the root causes of this and how can brands increase their chances of positive outcomes and avoid the negative ones.
Balancing In-House Talent & External Partnerships
00:03:51
Speaker
okay thanks e so ah i can I can give you the analyst's answer first, which is the right way to do it. The you know the way to maximize your chances of the positive outcomes is to
00:04:04
Speaker
ah align everybody towards a goal that's business-wide and long-term and strategic, but that's anchored in short-term, more achievable objectives. That's it's a pretty easy thing. you can You can say that and have it apply to almost any kind of translation project, which is to say you want to be doing both of those things. You want to be having a long-term vision, and then you want to be going for quicker wins in the kind of interim. When we think about 3D and digital product creation specifically, though, um I think success is as much of a matter of immersion and understanding as it is for anything else from a leadership point of view. How well do senior folks actually understand the the ins and outs and the mechanics of 3D
Resistance to Digital Prototypes
00:04:51
Speaker
and how much do they understand the wider ecosystem of tools and processes and mindsets and things that have grown around those tools?
00:05:00
Speaker
um And how much are they willing to acknowledge that 3D and digital product creation is a new discipline? It's not just a design initiative. It's not just something that is compartmentalized as being achieved through adoption of new design tools, but it's something that requires a more wholesale transformation.
Avatars in Digital Fashion
00:05:22
Speaker
And I think those same people, the more and most they are in that, the more they recognize that it's, um,
00:05:29
Speaker
It's something that's a work in progress. It's something that needs to be worked towards. The more they all recognize that the technology ecosystem itself is kind of incomplete as well, and that it's and that that's something that needs to be progressively built out. So I think it's about not having a mindset where you sponsor something in the short term, and then that something has a finite endpoint after which you can say, we have done 3D.
00:05:56
Speaker
It's about recognizing that it's a longer term. and more strategic transformation. It's recognising what that's designed to accomplish in the long term. it's It's being honest with your own organisation and with yourself about how capable you are of meeting it. And it's about having a thorough understanding of the demand and the mechanics as well. So I think the the best way to get to those positive outcomes is to be as immersed as you can possibly be in the ins and outs of all of this, because it's still something that is
00:06:27
Speaker
actively under construction and not something that's 100% finished.
Future of Digital Product Creation
00:06:31
Speaker
I don't know, Sophia, does that align with the way you think about this as well? It does. And I feel like you know when you talk about immersive, it's to your point, it's something that applies to everyone across all functions and across all levels and even divisions. So it's um you know a song and dance between your business and your IT team.
00:06:52
Speaker
and empowering your teams to be able to make decisions at all levels, which I think is really important. um And that's something that we've seen like the companies that have had success even through lots of different turnover and lots of different leadership changes have been because they've truly implemented DPC as a strategy within their lower level teams so that like the teams understand and it's their true way of working. And then there's succinct change management so that it's just kind of part of that normal. So that way it doesn't just leave because someone leaves, you know, or because someone else comes in, it's now part of their day to day. And I think that that's super important.
00:07:30
Speaker
that definitely. And I think, you know, having realistic expectations is is a function of the things that Sophia and I have just talked about, right? It's a function of understanding. It's a function of living the day to day. It's a function of recognizing the impact that one department has on another, only when you really understand all of that.
00:07:49
Speaker
Can you be realistic ah about your expectations? I think only when you understand all of that can you really set a vision that's concrete and achievable but ambitious at the same time.
00:08:02
Speaker
Now, both of you have been working in the fashion technology space for quite a while, and you probably have seen a lot of changes and advancement when it comes to DPC, as well as in other areas of technology like automation. Automation is playing a key role in delivering a return on any technology or process investment, but Calypso's research has revealed that brands don't always feel as though they have the required maturity to move from confined applications to business-wide change.
00:08:32
Speaker
ah Sophia, let's start with you. Why do you think technology initiatives still stall on this transition ah to do with automation? I think that people tend to sometimes underestimate how complex the DPC ecosystem is or even you know any retail enterprise um product ecosystem. You have data that lives in different areas and really needs to be managed. And I think that what happens is is once people start to adopt this transformation way of working. They realize the extent of the data management strategy that they need in order to enable these automations or things like that. And I think that, you know, oftentimes we see how it's, you know, are you trying to automate a function within a singular tool? A lot of times that's a lot easier. You can work with your you know software provider or things like that.
00:09:22
Speaker
But most of the time we're trying to automate an entire process. We're trying to say like, I want to click a button and have this entire workflow go away. Like for bomb automation, for example, or automate tech packs. So I think that in order to be able to connect those dots, you know, it's the same way we talk about all the functions needing to understand, you know,
00:09:42
Speaker
what their downstream impact on their teams are. It's the same when you're talking software to software. And so you really need a strong partnership I think between your IT team and your business, which is this is the theme that I'm going for this year. um And then I think it's also that your IT t team needs to have complete you know conceptual architecture. They need to understand where the data flows are and what needs to talk to what and what things need to, you know, what data needs to flow, um, directionally or bi-directionally. And I think that that has been kind of a struggle and a lot of people are really great at it, but not as much maybe in the earlier stages of product creation. And that's where we're seeing it now is that we're kind of pushing it more towards earlier and earlier.
00:10:24
Speaker
um And I think that that's just something that we're kind of unlocking together. What do you think, Ben? Do you agree? I do. I like i like the the main theme being the need for the business and the creative function to talk to the IT team. I think that's that's a pretty good one. ah I think the main issue with a lot of this is that digital maturity in general isn't a tide that rises all boats situation. so you know if you If you support your design team, for instance, or you build a newly grown 3D team and and you support them in changing the way they bring ideas to life.
00:10:59
Speaker
It doesn't automatically pull manufacturing with it and kind of supply chain collaboration with it or the reverse, you know, given how much 3D maturity there is in the supply chain. ah You know, a neither does using 3D models in advertising translate into a better understanding of how things should be done at the product creation level. None of these things automatically pull the other thing with them. um But that's kind of a cultural root of some of the problems when you think about automation and scale and this sort of transition is what I said before a lot of people have said well we've done 3d when in fact what they've done is you know they've implemented and elevated a 3d design or 3d tech development or 3d engineering function they haven't figured out the rest of it um and I think people tend to
00:11:49
Speaker
sort of expect that the rest of the business knows what to do with that relatively narrow maturity. um And that leads to the kind of mismatch you see sometimes between different departments wanting digital assets to use, other departments building those assets, but nobody really knowing how to plug it all together. So that's that's the kind of cultural side of it. And then you've got the basic technical reason, which is that the logical state would be that a 3D representation of a product should be that the definition and specification for that product. you know In an ideal world, 3D should specify everything needed to make a thing. That's the way it works in a lot of other engineering driven industries. We don't really live in that ideal world in fashion. And a lot of companies have reached the stage of asking
00:12:35
Speaker
Well, we've, you know, we're mature in one or more particular areas, why can't we have a full digital twin that does everything that we wanted to do? um And that's something the technology ecosystem right now doesn't have a perfect answer for. um And that's something that organizations have to kind of create the mandate for and then work with technology companies and with their own IT functions to Sophia's point to achieve. ah So it's a bit of a like mismatch somewhere between cultural expectations, between departments, between what the technology is actually capable of. um And I think that's where things stop. That's where those issues in kind of de-compartmentalizing the DPC come from.
00:13:18
Speaker
I think it's a delicate balance too because I think when you're trying to upskill your internal teams and implement DPC you know in 3D, I think that a lot of the times the designer feels like they're going to lose their creativity because you want you know one of the benefits of 3D is being able to iterate and being able to you know change your mind and do these things. so you know I think it's that hard balance of like where do you finalize and get that digital twin at what point in the milestone so that you can get all the downstream benefits and how do you marry the two together you know is it that you have you know your digital
00:13:53
Speaker
like library is automated so that everything has the associated data and they're connected so that when your designer is playing or pulling from a component library or getting their hardware, you know, all of that implements. But it's like, how do you allow for the creative freedom and not take away from that, which I think is so important to the fashion industry, but still reap all the benefits of working digitally in 3D. Yeah, anything you'd add there, Ben, based on what Sophia said?
00:14:17
Speaker
Some of that, when we think about automation, especially in Saphir, you'll know this from the time you've spent in industry, is we've actually come a reasonably decent way from 3D feeling like an imposition on creative folks. Because there was definite there was definitely a period where it was you need to design in this new way and also it doesn't 100% plug into your PLM tool, it doesn't 100% plug into your material libraries. There's some measure of manual data entry and reconciliation and things. It's a separate thing that is semi-bridged with the rest of the product creation and technical development of workflow, but not completely. We've come quite a long way on that, I think. um And to me, at least from my perspective, it seems like
00:15:07
Speaker
3D and the whole ecosystem of digital materials and everything else that exists around it is much more embedded into the creative process than it's been in the past. um but I don't think it's, I think it still feels like an other, it still feels, to some people at least, it still feels like an additional piece that isn't quite slotted in the way that it should be. um And that I think is where you might encounter some of that hesitance from people who would say, well, it's not part of my core core creative toolkit.
00:15:44
Speaker
and it feels like it doesn't quite bridge it the way that I want it to and therefore it feels like a threat to my creativity to some extent um and I wonder if that's just something where the edges get smoothed off over time and where it becomes a more natural part of that creative ecosystem or whether that's something that needs more active thought and active pushing and more active participation from the creative community. I don't know. So what would you what would you say is the way to get around that, that block where maybe it feels like it's impinging on people's creativity instead of helping it? I do think you're right. I think it's one of those like change is difficult. And I think going from working in a 2d space to a 3d space is a complete shift in mindset. I also think
00:16:31
Speaker
It's one of those things that we've talked about with some of our clients is like, you can hide a lot behind a 2D sketch and just wait. You know what I mean? You can kind of stay, I say call it in the honeymoon phase. Like you can stay in the romance of what your idea is, but when you're working in 3D, you can see all of the warts and all of the, you know, nuance that might not work out. And I think that you have to be able to kind of change the way that you work, just keep that excitement. And, you know, even when your idea comes to fruition, but I think that it's,
00:17:02
Speaker
The way that, you know, kind of coming together to your point is allowing the designers to be able to have, you know, more of the libraries at their hand, being able to have that support and just timing the tool. I think everybody's so busy now, you know, everyone wants to get closer to market. We're just kind of cutting time, cutting time, which I understand, but it's, you know, how do you build that timing for people to upscale and really get used to this new way of working? So it does become their creative tool.
00:17:28
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's, that's a really, really good point. i've I've spoken to brands before who've said it's literally just time in the tool. Like that's, that's the key to getting people on board with these things. And like you just pointed out, though the fashion industry does not, it's not rich in free time.
00:17:45
Speaker
for people when you're on a constant treadmill of figuring out what needs to be made next, what slots do I have to fill, what are we making the next season. So I think from a leadership perspective, if we can tie up these past two questions, it would be all of the stuff we talked about earlier, but also how do you accommodate people's need to feel comfortable and to feel like this is something that empowers them rather than starts to just ask from them and it that's a function of giving time and it's a fun giving support I guess. so Yeah my next question kind of
00:18:20
Speaker
builds on this and touches on several points that you both have already mentioned. But um you'll both know that building out an end-to-end digital workflow is something that will benefit brands very much. And this is arguably the only way to unlock unlock some of the real value of DPC and broader digital transformation. But in working towards this vision um and with modern product development architecture, there are still some serious hurdles when it comes to interoperability and connectivity.
00:18:50
Speaker
and Sophia, where do you think the industry is truly at here? And what do you see as the long-term solution for this? It's really interesting because I think when you see the new, like, you know, going to different conferences or seeing what new software vendors pop up, like in the last year or so, we've seen a lot of different companies that have come onto the scene um that are solving this problem. And to me, that's like, you know, can tell you everything about where people are going. So we have companies like 4D Pipeline and Arthiota or Enhance That, that are working with different providers because there's softwares on the market that, you know, don't necessarily talk to each other or they have different plugins, but it'll take the work of your, team you know, IT t team to do it. And sometimes they just don't have the resources to dedicate
00:19:37
Speaker
what you need in order to connect these different softwares or the expertise and so I think that we're coming into an era where we're gonna find a lot of these solutions that maybe right now are being developed bespoke for different companies. And what I'm hoping is that it'll eventually evolve to maybe some off the shelf solutions that people can implement to be able to connect their 3D tool to you know whatever else they need a lot of times. you know Like Ben said, we were already seeing kind of connections between the 3D tools and the PLM tools, but you know,
00:20:09
Speaker
now maybe with the collaboration tools and really just getting things to be more user friendly. I find that people have less patience lately um with technology. You know, I think everyone's always thought technology is a magic wand, but like people just are like, why is this taking so long? Why is it? you know And it's very interesting to me how slowly the patients have diminished for this over time. And so I'm hoping that with the emergence of some of these other solutions or the way that things are moving that we'll be able to have better solves for some of these core problems that people have been asking for for a long time. And Ben, what about you? What do you think is the solution here?
00:20:47
Speaker
So I think the solution to to some extent, the solution is for brand suppliers and tech companies to work together, right? So that that means brands building a manifesto for what they want the 3D DPC ecosystem to do, and tech companies then responding to that, you know, the traditional push and pull between industry demand and like technical capability, the that will go some way to forcing integration and forcing interoperability when when when people ask for it by default. The other is that, you know, this is a journey that other industries are currently on, um you know, this this drive towards standardization, interoperability, portability of 3D assets in particular.
00:21:32
Speaker
um and And the best frame of reference might be the drive towards USD, a universal scene description in the computer graphics space, you know, because that's intended to be a framework for packaging, sharing, collaborating on 3D objects, scenes and more in a way that's design is interoperable by design. um And that's something that's only come about because it's had a lot of input from major creative studios, brands, tech companies at both the software and the hardware level and a whole bunch of other stakeholders. So that's not something that just organically happened is the output of years worth of companies having their own homegrown tools, their own pipelines, their own workarounds, their own bespoke integrations, like Sophia mentioned. um And
00:22:20
Speaker
It's only after that input that you've got to the point where um people are really starting to put energy behind that standard because they recognize that 3D computing graphics are one of the most important touch points for people across a bunch of different industries. Fashion's on the same journey as just earlier. I think we're at the point where everyone's trying their own approach and getting together their different solutions and workflows to get to a 3D pipeline that works for them.
00:22:48
Speaker
Will we see the same kind of industry cooperation in fashion that we need to accomplish something similar? I'm hopeful um because you know fashion does have some important codified standards for colors, for patterns, for labor operations, but we've also got a lot of questions still hanging over where fundamental product data lives and where materials live that's very different on a per brand basis and a per company basis. And I think we have to have some kind of industry-wide solve or some measure of standardization for that before you get to anything like a universal framework for 3D interoperability for apparel, footwear and accessories.
00:23:29
Speaker
I think it's the same challenge that other industries have faced. I think profession is equipped with the right tools to go about it, but it's going to require a lot of that communication and collaboration and some of those third parties plugging gaps and things that Sophia talked about. But ah but it's it's not it's not impossible because it's something that other sectors are actively working towards and are a bit further ahead on as well. Sophia, anything to add there? No, I mean, I think that um we have thought about like and followed other industries to see what they're doing. And it's interesting because I think the thing that's always held the fashion industry back a little bit has been the fact that we are focused on soft goods. So there's a lot of fabric simulation that's here. And obviously they do that for cars or for, you know, you're sitting in luxury seats, but I think it's different when you think about what the tech needs to do in order to get to the point where, um,
00:24:26
Speaker
You can accurately, you know, I think we just have so many options in what we choose for materials and what we do for different areas that I don't know. I think that there's just some nuance there that we haven't had seen in other industries as much, but I do think that, um, I think it'll get there eventually. We're always a little bit behind the curve when it comes to technology and fashion.
00:24:51
Speaker
Which I think is is is fair based on what you just said, right? they they The combination of like nuance and speed and variety and everything else is pretty unique to fashion. There aren't many other. It's easy to point to engineering industries like I've done before and say it's the same thing.
00:25:09
Speaker
some of the first principles and stuff are the same, but the actual month in month out, how much how much products are you making? How many options do you have? How quick is the market moving? Where are you sourcing all of this stuff? What are what's the demand? Like all of that is very unique to fashion. um So I don't think it's necessarily a case of kind of fashion just going, Oh, well, we'll tap into the exact same resources and the exact same frameworks that other industries have done.
00:25:36
Speaker
It's a case of contextualizing those and using them as inspiration for a 3D pipeline and a digital transformation strategy that is specific to apparel, one specific to footwear, one specific to accessories, whatever it takes to make that work for fashion in a way that makes sense. Absolutely.
00:25:56
Speaker
So we've been speaking now kind of about nuance and about standardization and I'm curious as to what you both think about what the ideal DPC team looks like, whether it's going to be the same for each brand or you know each different company. um So from the research brands seem to be struggling with a lack of in-house digital expertise leading to a reliance on partners for support.
00:26:21
Speaker
And these external partners become critical to the success of digital transformation, but they're also complicating the race towards time savings and autonomy because they represent a workaround for in-house talent gaps rather than a permanent solution. So what do you think might be the right balance between homegrown or higher talent and external resources? um And is this mix going to change in the future? um Ben, let's start with you. What do you think?
00:26:50
Speaker
I'm actually going to pass the book to Sophia on this one to go first just because just because I think she's got a better read on this in the more recent kind of data set on this than I might have. I do have some thoughts, but I you've done the research and I'd love to hear what what it tells us. Yeah, no, absolutely. I've done the research and I had my own team for a while. So yeah, it's very interesting. And I think about this all the time, because I do think it looks different for every brand or maybe for your different product sector, you know, if depending on how you set up your team in your business. I also think the dependency has to do with what are your product development pipelines, you know, are you doing um speed? Do you have a lot of innovation? Do you have a longer lead time? What does that look like? But we've seen people um have exceeded what we call like a center of excellence. So they hire people with 3D skills across all the different capabilities that you would need to do.
00:27:45
Speaker
And then you can support. We've seen people upskill their teams. And then we've seen people just solely rely on their vendors. And this is going to sound so contrite, but I think it's obviously a mix of both of all of the above. I think strategic vendor partnerships are key. Your vendors are experts. They do this for so many people. And I think that having them and utilizing their expertise to understand how you can kind of like what areas that you need to upskill and bring internally um are important.
00:28:15
Speaker
I also think it depends on what you're trying to do with 3D. I think a lot of people do it for early product development, but then you have a lot of different um merchandising tools like visual assortment and visual line planning and showroom and shop maps. And I think that that's the other question that has always come into play of who's responsible for updating those 3D assets and how do you ensure that you have the most up to date as you go through your product development calendar. and A lot of times, by the time it gets to that point in the calendar, the design team's already working on the next season and the vendor's already working on the next. So who's responsible for that? So sometimes you see this infrastructure of um outside teams or center of excellences who are responsible for keeping that updated. And I think it just really depends on
00:29:02
Speaker
how you balance that. I also think that there's so much in happening in education right now. 3D is part of the core fashion education. It's even part of textile education. you know We're trying to get people in tech design as well. So I think that you're going to see more and more of that come in um as people start hiring. So I think it'll be it'll start to round itself out.
00:29:28
Speaker
um But yeah, it's it's very different for each person. and And I've seen different resource models. I've seen people create 3D positions. So that you have a designer and a 3D designer or a tech designer and a 3D tech designer. ah And it's just very, I'm very curious to see where it goes. But I do think that um my suggestion would be vendor partnership, figure out what your operating model is, your asset creation model. and figure out how often you need that to be updated and who's gonna see that 3D asset downstream and who's responsible for it. I think clear, racy, not to bring in some framework and some consulting lingo, but to clearly understand who's responsible for the asset through its life cycle is very important to figuring out how you need to resource and staff against it. Yeah, that's a really good answer. And my my thinking on this one,
00:30:23
Speaker
ah A lot of what I was going to say here really does dovetail with the first thing because I think when people talk about a 3D talent gap, um the they're often just talking about design. Basically, they're talking about 3D people who are creating 3D assets or traditional creative or technical designers or pattern makers, design development, I guess, um who should have in in the sin the modern world 3D skills. But upskilling and overcoming the talent gap is as much about having the right mindset and the right skills and the right expertise and the people who then receive those assets and have to go on and do something with them. So it's as much of a sourcing challenge or a material development challenge or an executive challenge as it is but about pure design. So I was really glad to hear you say it's not just one individual area where those things exist.
00:31:18
Speaker
um I think when you think about what implications that has for resourcing and what implications that has for for for hiring and so on, every organisation wants to grow their own internal capabilities. um But we certainly don't live in a world where every organisation can just continually hire and build out new functions and scale them up quickly. So there's always going to be that tension between we would love to be able to do all of this ourselves and we have partners in the supply chain, the vendors, who actually have these skills already and in in some cases are more mature in these skills than than people that you might want to hire them straight out of university or somewhere else.
00:32:06
Speaker
leveraging that expertise makes a ton of sense. When when you think about what the objective of 3D and digital product creation is, which is to get as close to the final result as you possibly can virtually, um it makes a huge amount of sense to bring in the people who are actually going to be translating the digital into physical in the first place and having them be part of that. um I think the other thing is,
00:32:35
Speaker
There's a lot of 3D studios and agencies as well. So if what you do want to do is scale your 3D design capabilities or you want to quickly scale your 3D advertising and marketing and that whole downstream portion of it, there are are the third party vendors out there who are not vendors from the kind of sourcing, procurement manufacturing point of view, but from the the agency model. um And I think that happens with anything that's fundamentally reasonably new. Companies will outsource work until they develop enough skills to do it themselves or until the job market and education filters those people to the top. There are some good bureaus and agencies out there. There are some less good ones. um I think the best ones are the ones that are
00:33:21
Speaker
recognizing that they're not, shouldn't just be creating assets on brands' behalf, but they should be working with them to become like embedded 3D evangelists and helping in-house audiences and partner audiences to really see the value of 3D working. So I think Sophia's right, like long-term it's a balance between in-house and vendors from a supply chain point of view.
00:33:49
Speaker
working on the 3D creation stuff. I think in the interim, you will also see more pressure of being relieved by some of these kind of 3D agencies and bureaus who are helping to just alleviate some of that need for 3D asset that isn't necessarily met by supply at the moment.
00:34:08
Speaker
Yeah, well, that gives us two pretty comprehensive answers for that. um And unless you'd like to add anything, I'm happy to go on to a topic which I think is particularly important, which is um about full confidence in DPC, especially when it comes to building trust in digital prototypes. So um from Calypso's research, we see that there's still some resistance when it comes to this. And as a result, people are falling back to old habits.
00:34:36
Speaker
and relying on physical samples to make the same decisions they could have made digitally. um And I understand we all do that this is a big transition that will take time, but what do you think brands can do to accelerate the change towards a a digital first approach? um Sophia, how about you? What do you think?
00:34:58
Speaker
I think it's an interesting time. So I think um when we were in the pandemic and everyone was forced to go digital, there was such a jarring difference of our day to day life that we just, you know, everyone dove in and now people are back in the office and they're back having meetings. And, you know, I think that there's a big push of I don't want to be in a physical space and looking at a digital screen. So I think that people have kind of that's part of the drive of wanting the physical. But I also think we're in a company where we're an industry that makes physical product. And you know people like to have the touch and feel. And I think that there's different ways that you can have both. And I think the important part of adopting digital product creation is not that you're going to replace all of your physical. It's that when you look at your physical, it's right the first time you know that your idea and your concept have come to life. So you're not wasting your time reiterating or going back and forth that you're making your time with
00:35:56
Speaker
making the right decisions. And I think that that's kind of key about the best way to work digitally is to have an understanding of, you know, your clear milestones and what decisions you're making at each milestone and having people have confidence so that like if you're tech designer feels confident in the fit of the digital garment, no one else should be able to question that fit. Like you can have a dialogue and a conversation about it, but you should be able to have that trust within your team. If design says, this is my design intent and they believe in it digitally, you know what I mean? There shouldn't be able to be that. um Well, I don't like that. you know So I think it's really having to understand and really develop that confidence within your own functional team that for what they're responsible for on the garment.
00:36:41
Speaker
If design is responsible for design intent and fit is responsible, you know, TD is responsible for the fit that, you know, if everyone comes together, then they can feel confident when they hand it off to their merge partners or they're looking at it so that they're really making the decisions on what the assortment is, what the balance is, you know, did I you know answer the brief? Did I get the right ideas for the season? And I think that that's really the way that we build this digital confidence so that when you're looking down, you know,
00:37:09
Speaker
at the calendar when you're kind of making those adoption decisions that you feel like you're in the right spot. And if you're in an area where you're working with different sales teams or all over the globe, you know, you're able to kind of come together and really understand that that's the source of truth, that that's what you're looking at. And I also think it's still important to keep up your color library so you have your core physical you know, standards that people are looking at and referencing because it's really hard to manage color across all the screens, across all the ways that we share and doing things and you can drive yourself insane and it's not worth it really. You know, to me, it's more the focus of
00:37:47
Speaker
I've been doing this for years. I know what this shirt looks like. We're iterating. Maybe it's the same fit. It's the same block. We're doing slightly new fabric. We're doing a slightly new thing. like Trust yourself and trust that you know what it's going to look like and trust that you know that you have enough you know references and resources to be able to make those decisions. Ben, what about you? What's your take? Yeah. yeah and It's really interesting to bring in color because very few people will do full digital and end to end digital color approvals. that That would be the exception rather than the rule for all for the reasons you just mentioned, you have to have full end to end calibrated displays and viewing environments and what even if you do have that, what you end up with is a very
00:38:34
Speaker
narrow pocket of people who believe in it, because they understand the science behind it. And then you have everybody else who is in the traditional mindset saying, well, I don't know if I trust this, and I feel like I should be able to second guess it because color matters to me and so on.
00:38:53
Speaker
And I can see some really good parallels with 3D there, because if if you as as a technical designer, for example, you as a fit engineer, you as somebody, as a material developer, if you trust digital, then what you need is the culture around you to support you to say, well, that decision is made. And that decision and we are we as an organization and as a department are confident enough that that's the right decision. No, we don't need to second guess it. We don't need to see a physical sample.
00:39:23
Speaker
There are 3D companies out there who have a really uncompromising attitude to samples where they might not openly say it, but they like behind closed doors, they would say, if you made a physical sample, you've already anchored yourself in the traditional analog value chain.
00:39:36
Speaker
Uh, then you've got some people who are a bit more uncomfortable, a bit more compromising, you know, say, well let's have one physical example. Let's, let's have two. It can be a slippery slope when you get to that. Um, but I think there's a huge amount of value in what Sophia said, which is having each individual function. No.
00:39:54
Speaker
what digital can do for them, how well that does or doesn't translate into the physical end result, and just progressively building that confidence in it. Because it's not like i'm I've been guilty of this before saying with the holy grail for 3d is the have to be able to make every creative and commercial decision based on the same asset. Great, that would fine, know that would be wonderful. It's not necessarily where we are. If you can make an isolated creative or commercial decision, and you know it's right, and you are supported by kind of top level leadership and everybody else to say, well, that decision is made, doesn't need to be remade, then that accomplishes a huge amount. It's not the same as me saying to you, Emma, like,
00:40:36
Speaker
you need to release this podcast into syndication having never listened to it just trust me it's fine it's more a case of saying well the individual people who work on this parts of it all trust this process so therefore that stacks up to trust over time so but people don't like the idea of relinquishing control and i think if you frame 3d and dpc that way where you say I'm taking a choice out of your hands. I'm taking something else. It can feel like that. But if you just if you trust people to have control over the bits that matter to them and give them the support to say that the people before them or after them in the value chain have the trust, eventually it just compounds over time. um maybe ah Maybe that's an idealistic way of thinking about it. I don't know. But um it is ah I love what Sophia said. I think it's the right way to think about this.
00:41:29
Speaker
Yeah, and I think to your point, like it's also about the change, like having the functions understand what's in it for them. Why are they working this way? It's about like what can it save you? What can it help you with? And I think that that also helps build the confidence in those areas.
00:41:44
Speaker
It is. And when you think about fashion in general, like so much of regular product creation, not digital product creation, regular product creation is about compromise and reconciliation and disagreement and balancing by creative and commercial. So it's not that part is not a new idea. um And I do want to underline that it's still the case that working digitally can eliminate or mitigate a lot of that disagreement and reconciliation and a lot of that inefficiency that's baked into the traditional product creation process. So even if you don't trust it implicitly 100%, you can still recognize that it provides an uplift over the alternative way of doing things.
00:42:24
Speaker
And the more people that recognise it provides that uplift, and the more you knit those things together, and the more you get towards wider business transformation. I have a really important question that ties in with this confidence in DPC, and this is around avatars. And it's a topic that's become more prevalent over the past few years, and one that's been really important for making digital products relatable and actionable.
00:42:50
Speaker
um So when I say avatars I think a lot of people either imagine digital foot models or they picture real-time video game models neither of which are really suitable for supporting the wide spectrum of different creative and commercial decisions that can and honestly should be made digitally. Can you both give us your insights on how avatars have evolved and what that word should mean for listeners today and actually why it's all so important for brands and customers for providing a meaningful digital experience. and Ben, shall we start with you? ah we We can. I have a very kind of quick answer on on this one, which is nobody makes decisions about clothes in a vacuum. They're always intended to be worn, used, and to perform on a person's body. What it means to perform is a very different question, depending on where you stand, if you're in material development it means one thing, creative design it means another, field testing and consumer use is something else, marketing is something different. um What an avatar needs to do as in a 3D body that's going to wear a 3D garment and determine whether it performs successfully is something that has to be fit for each of those purposes. um I think the industry's taken some really big leaps in a bunch of those areas.
00:44:08
Speaker
soft body avatars for fitting and virtual performance testing, high quality, customizable virtual humans designed to look as real as possible. um There's big progress being made on inclusivity, standardization, form and function. I think maybe those improvements are still mostly being made a little bit in isolation rather than than adding up to a single universal avatar standard that can serve every purpose. But to me, this is an area where actually, DPC has come a long way and is doing really well.
00:44:38
Speaker
There's some interesting experimentation being done with AI where you use traditional advertisers to meet internal demands and then a generative model to enhance the way those avatars look for consumer-facing use cases. It'd be interesting to see how that evolved technically and culturally, but for me, and you know I was not not somebody doing the research in this case, just this is my kind of litmus test is that this is an area where the industry's performed pretty well. And I think we're heading generally in the right direction. But Sophia, I'd love to know, does my kind of general feeling and my sentiment line up with what you're actually seeing in the industry? Yeah, I definitely think it does. I think that when you think about um an avatar and what it takes to go into it, I think that a lot of people
00:45:25
Speaker
probably in our industry don't realize the complexity of the 3D behind it. You know, when you look at like MetaHuman and the way that they've just layered different materials on it so that you get that realness of like the layers of skin so that it looks photo real and the power and the rendering ah power that it takes to really get you what is a photo real avatar. I think that that's one of the reasons that it hasn't been as big of a priority because when I work with people, especially they don't have time to wait for renderers to like give you the photo real avatar. So like, that's why we've always worked with whatever's quickest or whatever's in the software. And I think that the things that have been there have just been distracting. It's always something that people call out of like, why does that person look weird? Why are their eyes looked at? You know, like it's just one of those things. And I think to your point, a lot of the, I think the AI solutions that have come on have been very, um
00:46:23
Speaker
exciting to the people in the industry because it takes a process that used to take a really long time with specific expertise, like the people that you're upskilling to work on your 3D garments are not the ones that understand how to make realistic hair or, you know, how to do realistic skin or things like that. It's a different 3D skill set.
00:46:41
Speaker
And oftentimes you might just have one person who knows how to rig an avatar do those things. And so I think that the ability to take your 3D and map it with maybe your marketing imagery or your photo, ah or even just like look and create those photo realistic avatars quicker has been very appealing. And I think it's definitely very appealing to people, especially in merchandising or marketing or you know even for consumer testing for all of these things where we want people to have the most realistic experience that they could have. um I've still seen it kind of come and go. I think to your point, the thing about fit and what we're looking for, you know depending on what kind of use case or capability you're trying to solve for, if you're doing fit, you need something that's realistic, the soft body, the ability to really understand how it'll move on the body.
00:47:30
Speaker
ah They might not be the same avatar and that's okay. And I think people are okay with that. I think understanding where you need to focus that energy and of really making things photo realistic is such an important part in all things digital product creation. Like what is the information I need to make the decision I need to make? And then moving that across each milestone so that you get to your end goal. But I think the technology has really stepped up in this area and it's exciting to see where it's going to go.
00:47:59
Speaker
Yeah, and on that note, actually, I want to ask you what you think is going to happen next for the wider industry around DPC and ah digital transformation. We'll stick to a timeline of 12 months. Let's say you can go further if you want. These don't need to be concrete predictions, but I think you probably both have some interesting thoughts to offer on um where we're going next.
00:48:26
Speaker
i I've been thinking about this a lot. I think it's hard. It's funny because I always think back. ah This will probably be my forever reference when like everyone was into NFTs and they were diving all in and we're like, the meta versus the future. And then like next year it was like, but don't mention that. um So I think for digital product creation, I've seen a lot of upskilling. I've seen the way that the education has changed and I feel like ah where it's gonna go or probably where I hope it's gonna go is more of that connection to solve the things that we've talked about. So the interoperability and the automation and trying to just make things easier. I also, what I see over this next year, you know AI has popped up and a lot of companies have come out with some pretty straight ah strong guidelines on what types of AI companies are allowed to use and how they're allowed to use them, whether it's internal or commercial facing. And so I think that
00:49:22
Speaker
um that will be something that will be more ah probably clarified through over the year with how the technology is evolving of, can we incorporate more AI into our workflow? What does that look like? Is it based on your internal library? So there's less you know worry about copyright infringement or things like that. That's really where I see it going. Cool. For me, it's that It's that digital twin question from before. writ large I think, you know, we spend a lot of time we in the DPC 3D community talking in very productive, creative and exciting circles, but circles nonetheless about what 3D is supposed to do and how far it's ready to be integrated into the real bones of fashion.
00:50:13
Speaker
But I think we're approaching a really good point where that conversation is changing gears. Is 3D a creative tool? Is it an engineering tool? Is it a marketing tool? Is it a new channel for engagement and selling? I think everybody who's really immersed in this space would say, well, it's all of those. um So I think what's in the near term future is the industry getting appreciably closer to having assets, standards, codified pipelines, and best practices that really support all those use cases for a single asset.
00:50:42
Speaker
um I mean, I i love 3D and computer graphics. There's a personal passion with me that predates me getting into fashion 15 years ago. But within fashion, there's been a massive legacy of very smart people working on 3D for apparel and footwear and accessories since well before I came on the scene. um And there's been decades of progress, I think, that's kind of come in maybe a little bit in fits and starts. But We know from market testing and general conversations and things that the majority of companies now have really at least experimented with 3D. Maybe they've they've reached a good level of maturity. Like Sophia mentioned earlier, a lot of people are 4 out of 5 in their ambition and things.
00:51:25
Speaker
And that's really, it feels like a snowball effect now. um um And I'm confident that we'll see that translate into a more fundamental shift in the way the industry operates in in in the near future. um I think if if you think you know people listening to this, if you think you've got a role to play in that work, then Make sure you recollect those research, go back to our own back catalog of 3D DPC coverage, look out for work. I'm sure both of us are doing in 2024 and beyond beyond. And just figure out how to play an active part, as active a part as you can in realizing the full scope of the vision for 3D. Fantastic. Thank you both very much for being here and um we'll be watching Calypso and um yeah, just thank you for your insights and I'm sure the audience is really going to draw some valuable things from it. Sophia and Ben. Thank you very much for having me as always. um Thank you.
00:52:26
Speaker
I hope you found this episode insightful. Whether you're directly involved in 3D and DPC, or indirectly impacted by such a potentially big shift in how fashion design develops and sells, it's worth reading the full findings of Calypso's 2024 Digital Adoption Research Report, which you can access on their website. Also, be sure to follow Sophia and the team on LinkedIn for more insights.
00:52:52
Speaker
I have a lot of conversations coming up before the end of the year on everything from circularity to the future of fashion events. So to make sure you don't miss an episode, subscribe to the Interline podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts. As always, I'll remind you to subscribe to our weekly news roundups if you haven't already. Every Friday, the team and I get our thoughts down on the industry's biggest stories, and you can read it through the web or more easily in your inbox. Finally, since we're talking about 3D and DBC,
00:53:22
Speaker
The Interline will be publishing its very own TPC report this December for the third year running. And over the next few weeks, we're conducting a search for three new 3D designers to commission to create new pieces to define the visual identity of this year's report. If you create clothing, footwear, or digital-only fashion in 3D, reach out to a member of the team via LinkedIn or email digital at theinterline.com with some examples of your work.
00:53:53
Speaker
I'm really excited about that report. It's always one of our biggest, wildest and most interesting. For now though, I'll say goodbye and thanks for listening.