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A new Era: phygital fashion around the world

What does Phygital Stand for?

It is the year 2021, and we’ve developed, quite quickly, a whole different perception about life and the way we see things. After the world pandemic, we are witnessing a real global change.

This is the period in which we have to change our belief towards “stability” and consider new strategies. Especially in the fashion industry, luxury brands have to adapt experimenting innovative ways (both online and offline) and considering different perspectives.

Going “Phygital” is one of these. The name itself (PHYSICAL + DIGITAL = PHYGITAL) is a neologism.

We have this common feeling that the future has arrived, and technology affects all spheres of one’s business: from the marketing strategies to the retail experiences. With the word “phygital” we can describe anything that attempts to cross the divide between the physical and the digital world. 

Fashion & Luxury Goods Management Student - ESE Milan

MARGHERITA DE ANGELIS

Is Phygital the only future for Fashion and Luxury Brands?

It looks like it: thanks to artificial intelligence everything we know and see, will go even further. It is fundamental we become flexible enough to develop our vision and perspective, embracing the potential of connecting creativity and technology to keep the industry alive and a real protagonist of anticipation.

It was the 5th of March 2020 when, at the end of the Paris Fashion Week, the world was closed at home because of the pandemic. This year also, Women’s Collection Fall/Winter 2021/2022 presented at the Milano Fashion Week, was digital. Going 100% digital rose several polemics due to the high costs and urge for creativity towards the creation and organization of digital materials. It means that Going phygital does not always represent an advantage for showrooms. Costs involved in the preparation of each single item, are higher. Let’s think of a digital show: you need a 3D perspective to fully enjoy it, while now the majority of brands still leave it to the video maker's perspective.  

Even though the digital world has and is continuing to offer ways of making everything more accessible, we hope that human creativity and physicity will never be totally replaced or even forgotten.

How is Digital Transforming Traditional stores and the Customer Journey?

With e-commerces booming, there is a need for complementarity between physical stores, their virtual presence and an omni-channel approach. Customers themselves are phygital. They frequently combine brick-and-mortar shopping with digital shopping; they read product reviews online, then see and touch them in a store before actually purchasing them, on a third different platform.

An Effective Phygital Strategy can help Luxury Brands worldwide

The union between the traditional craftsmanship and the digital skills, such as data analysis for example, helped shape a new type of Luxury: the sustainable one. During the COVID 19 crisis, customers have become more engaged with sustainability and approached it “phygitally”. Luxury brands have forced the merge between creativity (calling for emotions, imagination and beauty) and the digital world (calling for speed and information). Yoox Net-a-Porter is a perfect example of this strategy. In November 2020 the group launched a capsule collection in collaboration with The Prince’s foundation in Britain, focused on merging traditional craftsmanship with digital tools like the use of data insights to create a new form of luxury with sustainability at its heart. The ‘Modern Artisan’ project used cashmere and wool sourced from the Scottish textiles firm Johnston of Elgin, meanwhile organic eco silk, fully traceable was sourced from Centro Seta in Italy.

 

“I see a future for the luxury and fashion industry with fewer collections that last for longer, meaning less production, less waste, more creativity and more sensitivity,” Federico Marchetti, Chairman and CEO of Yoox Net-a-Porter Group, told Luxury Society.

“This requires more mindful purchasing which is enhanced by technology; buying quality products that last. Pieces of high quality that can be cherished for a lifetime and beyond. To me that is true luxury and it is increasingly important to our customers,” he added.

In China, one of the largest luxury brands, Burberry, opened its first phygital store on 31st July 2020. The store, blending the physical experience into the social world became the first luxury social store. Burberry has dedicated a WeChat mini programme wherein customers can earn social currency to be used to access exclusive content and personalized services, such as an interactive digital window based on Burberry’s AW20 show Memories.

Also Sephora is testing a new phygital concept store in France after launching a new digitized store in New York on 31st March in 2017.

This latest Sephora experience is a new generation of Sephora stores, more attractive and captivating, totally reinventing the customer experience. There is also a digitally connected area, in which customers are encouraged to “discover, learn, play, and share their beauty” through the use of specific iPad stations.

Student Project

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