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Empowering Design For a Unified Future
Join Browzwear, iCare, and Plus One as we empower HKDI's young designers. See how 3D is reshaping fashion with designs focused on comfort and...
Sharon Lim and the innovative 3D design solution, Browzwear
Since as early as 2000, Browzwear could see that everything would eventually be online. Their vision is to recreate the same level of physical experience and engagement with their customers, but with new and innovative 3D digital technology.
“Dealing with garments online is tricky. How do you touch? How do you feel? How does it fit? These questions are central to Browzwear’s vision. So my partners started with a very lofty goal: to be able to bring fit, feel, touch, and enhance engagement with garments digitally online.”
What makes Browzwear so unique is how they bridge the gap between technology and fashion. With 74 partners, Browzwear connects its customers to industry-leading technological solutions for a seamless digital transformation journey.
An opportunity to re-evaluate business models with the use of digital technology
Brands are typically the implementers of digital technology. However, Browzwear believes that the role of suppliers in digital affairs is becoming increasingly important as well. This is because manufacturers are the source of the vast majority of information.
“When we go into transparency, it is critical for them to connect in a very open way. I look forward to a world where there is full transparency and full sharing of data that will help everyone to be so much more efficient and require less guess-work.”
Using this data and visualisation technology, retailers have an opportunity to change the way they do business.
“It is not just about producing clothes or designing them differently, but it is also the opportunity to validate your design. To bring consumer-driven data into how you design.”
Sharon mentions how many old-fashioned manufacturers, even during COVID times, are developing products 14 months in advance.
“I’m thinking to myself, why do we introduce so much risk into the apparel industry and fashion world with such a long lead time. This risk is not just for the retailers and brands, but also for manufacturers. Why take this risk when there is a better way of doing things? When you can virtually make clothes so much easier, when you can showcase and make decisions, and you can sell via e-commerce before your clothes are even made. Validate your ideas, gain consumer insight. Why are we still at 14 months?”
It is undoubtedly essential that both retailers and manufacturers keep moving towards the goal of connecting different aspects of apparel sourcing through technology. Nevertheless, many companies were not prepared for how fast this transition would need to be. COVID has forced companies to change their ways of working at incredible speed.
“Companies who were wondering how fast they would move to digital said, ‘let’s give it three years’. But those three years were reduced to three months of decision-making.”
This digitalization can go further to include B2B trade platforms, like Serai, as a means to connect with new businesses.
“I had been thinking, why in the world isn’t there a platform like Serai for the fashion industry? Connecting is a great start. Once you start to connect the different stakeholders, brands, retailers, sourcing houses – everybody wants to be a part of it. I think there is power in collective leadership and data that can then drive the industry far better.”
Excitement for a changing industry
Sharon, having been in the industry for 18 years, is very excited about the changes that the coming years will bring.
“It is very refreshing for me to see the industry taking steps toward sustainability, and putting responsibility into it. Not just because it is a buzzword, but really putting in the effort to do things better.”
“I also see the emergence of digital technologies accepted more than ever before. Especially by long-standing leaders in the industry who have finally recognized its importance and are taking steps in the right direction. People are willing to change now, which is great.”
We hope you enjoyed this fireside chat with Sharon Lim of Browzwear.
Find out more about Serai and Browzwear’s partnership that offers our users easy access to the top industry solution for showcasing 3D designs.
If you’re interested in more content like this and want to start digitizing your business, companies in the apparel industry can sign up for our B2B platform today.