“There’s been a whole move from
companies like Amazon trying to understand how fashion develops in the world,” says Kavita Bala, a professor at Cornell University who took part in a workshop on machine learning and fashion organized by Amazon last week. “This is completely changing the industry.”
A number of forward-thinking retailers are already using social networks like Instagram and Pinterest to track the latest fashion trends and react quickly. And startups like the subscription service Stitch Fix already make personalized recommendations based on user preferences and social-media activity.
