Swiss retail technology company meepl – the 3D smartphone body scanning clothes shopping companion – has announced it has partnered with STOLL – the leader in flat knitting machine technology – to offer bespoke made-to-measure knitwear for the fashion industry on a global scale.
This unique collaboration will be a first for the knitwear fashion market – combining sustainability with personalisation. Coupling meepl’s 3D body scanning app with STOLL’s ‘knit and wear’ innovative technology will provide a customer-centric solution to the historical issues surrounding customised clothing production. It will allow knitwear to be customised on an automated and scalable level, using meepl’s highly accurate measurements fed straight into the ‘knitelligence’ software controlling STOLL’s machines.
Ferdinand Metzler, Founder and CEO of meepl, says:
“Our partnership with STOLL means we will be able to offer a bespoke shopping experience to knitwear consumers across many global brands. By combining our state-of-the-art technologies, we can offer an unparalleled service that addresses sizing and quality of fit, bringing us closer to achieving our goal of eliminating standard sizing once and for all. From a sustainability point of view, both ourselves and STOLL feel passionately about reducing landfill when it comes to the disposal of clothing garments. We hope that by harnessing our technologies to match supply and demand we will be able to eliminate issues with overstocking and reduce retailer returns”.
The knitwear industry has previously struggled with inefficiencies with made-to-measure sizing, relying on manual methods of measuring and human input which is prone to error. meepl’s smartphone-enabled 3D body scanning technology uses body reconstruction algorithms to produce an almost 100 percent accurate body image from just two pictures, instantly obtaining up to 100 measurements of the body.
Over the last few years, there has been a notable global increase in demand for knitwear products, with a recent report recognising knitwear as a major segment of the fashion industry. STOLL’s clients including leading brands such as Adidas, Nike and Marc Cain, will be able to capitalise on this growth by offering greater accuracy in sizing with meepl’s 3D technology, resulting in a better consumer experience.
STOLL says: “With meepl’s easy-to-use and accurate body scanning technology the consumer’s personal body measurements can easily be connected to our knitelligence platform. The platform automatically adjusts the knitting pattern based on the body measurements being provided making it possible to knit tailored garments in a very short time without any manual intervention. For the first time ever, this combination of technologies makes it possible to offer mass customisation for everyone from the convenience of their homes”.
Both meepl and STOLL are paving the way in their use of technology in the production of garments for the fashion industry. The partnership will offer an unrivalled experience for the end-user in terms of both accuracy of sizing and quality of fit, leading to a level of automatic customisation of knitwear which can be scaled to a level that to date has not been achieved.
