On April 29, Heuritech launched "New Data for Fashion", a solidarity program intended to provide access to its strategic information to fashion brands in Europe, in particular emergings ones, which are being affected by the Coronavirus crisis. Tony Pinville, CEO of this company specialized in artificial intelligence applied to fashion, says more to Le Boudoir Numérique about his initiative, to which brands can apply now.

By Ludmilla Intravaia

Le Boudoir Numérique : You launched a special Covid-19 solidarity program for fashion brands. What problems are they facing, due to the Coronavirus crisis?

 Tony Pinville, CEO of Heuritech and PHD in machine learning : The concern is that there is no more information on current trends, because the stores are closed and fashion has stopped. The only information available is that of social networks. The central problem for brands is not to make mistakes about the products they will launch, according to current trends. As much, before the Covid-19 crisis, they had a little leeway, knowing that if some of their products did not work, they could do with the fact of having overstock that after could be put on sales. Now, the launch of a product has become a matter of life and death, in a fashion sector, where 80% of companies are under financial stress and face a decline in their investment capacity. The challenge is therefore to make as few mistakes as possible, by having access to key information to help decision-making when launching a new product. These key facts allow us to better understand current trends so as not to make missteps because, clearly, companies that do not make the right decisions may not survive the current crisis. This is especially true for emerging companies that do not have much funding.

What do you mean by that ?

The big players of fashion will still be there after the Covid-19 crisis. Certainly, it will be extremely difficult for them, but their financial mass will allow them, apart from collateral damage, to survive. But some young brands that don't have such strong assets may disappear. The time of solidarity has therefore struck for actors like Heuritech, which can help the ecosystem of small brands to survive, by sharing information and data. Since the creation of Heuritech, we have worked with big societies, to which our artificial intelligence solutions are addressed. Young brands cannot afford, let alone because of the crisis, the access to our information. This initiative was born, within our teams, who wanted, with great enthusiasm, to support these emerging brands, in a collaborative approach which aims to make them benefit from our data.

What have you planned?

Heuritech will deliver to the companies selected to participate in the program, trend reports, such as the “Trends during and post Covid-19” report (see here), developed thanks to insights and statistics from data collected on Instagram, to help companies resume their activities and manage their strategy, as well as personalized support, according to their needs and feedback. Because we do not want to limit ourselves in just transmitting data, that they maybe won’t know how to use, but we want to establish a real dialogue with them, so that they give us feedback on what is happening to them, in order for us to be able to look for even more relevant and enriching ways to be useful to them in optimizing their decisions.

Does your artificial intelligence tool still allow you to reliably predict fashion trends at 2-3 months, despite the confinement and the Coronavirus pandemic?

Absolutely. The proportion of Instagram posts around fashion has remained constant, despite the confinement. People are still interested in fashion trends. So there is always a lot of information to collect to analyze what is going on. Most importantly, social media has become the only place where you can get this info since, apart from some e-commerce websites, stores are closed. We continue to spot trends, such as that of comfortable lounge clothing, born of confinement. We look forward to sharing these trends with the participants in our program, to see what they think about it and to determine whether the analysis of other themes more specific to their issues could better help them deal with the crisis.

Who can register for your program?

 Our program is aimed at companies of all sizes in Europe, in particular young brands that cannot normally access our solution. Selecting a company with billions in turnover would not make sense. We are also committed to supporting emerging companies that are trying to challenge the current market, with a strong sustainable and local identity, because we are convinced that artificial intelligence can help brands meet the growing needs of the public for ethical ans responsible fashion. Our initiative could perhaps help brands, offering other values ​​than those of excessive overconsumption, to continue post-Covid. But we have not put in place strict criteria. An established company that is experiencing financial difficulties due to the Covid-19 crisis may very well be a candidate. There is also no cut-off date for registration as such, knowing that our information will be free until September 2020.

* To apply for Heuritech "New Data for Fashion" program, click here. To download the report "Trends during and post Covid-19", it's there. The Heuritech website is there.

* To find out more about Heuritech read the following Boudoir Numérique papers :

- Covid-19 - Heuritech Launches a solidarity program for fashion brands

- "Cross-fertilization between tech and fashion is the strength of Heuritech"

- “AI can contribute to the virtuous circle of sustainable fashion”

- Will leopard print pleated skirts be trending any time soon ? AI already knows it !