SHENGRI LA -  A new management program is being released that will greatly enhance the speed of designing real life fashion. Using virtual worlds, like Second Life and Open Sim, fashion designers will be about to create their product in a 3-D world, manage the production, and produce factory-ready specifications.

The Fashion Research Institute (FRI) in conjunction with IBM is developing a product lifecycle management solution for the fashion industry that specifically addresses the industry’s unique needs, cutting time to market. Designers will be able to access 3-D tools from within SL or Open Sim to create their fashion product. The 3-D models of the design can be shown in a virtual showroom.  Everyone who has a share in the product will be available to review the design: product managers, designers, design directors, merchandizers, costers, executives, sales staff and show room managers.  After the creative vision has been finalized, factory specifications are created that will enable the item to be manufactured in real life.

“Soon all fashion designers will be originating their designs and managing the production in virtual worlds,” Shenlei Winkler (Shenlei Flasheart in SL), director of the Fashion Research Institute said. “Why such a dramatic change?  Economics, pure and simple.”

Most designers presently work with creation of their fashion image using lines. Software used is commonly Illustrator, Photoshop and Excel.  This software forces design into a flat 2-D representation.

“Fashion designers think in 3-D,” Winkler said. “Most of the designers I’ve shown the initial concept to ‘get it.’ They get it viscerally and they want it.”

This process helps to cut down errors that creep into production of a product. Because the different stake holders join in as needed, everyone is seeing the same product in a 3-D work space.

Designers would need to be taught how to use the FRI-IBM solution, and FRI has formed collaborations with educators who are currently developing the training program necessary.

Dr. Mike Pitman (Rez Tone in SL) is IBM’s Principle Investigator on the research collaboration between FRI and IBM.  “We began with a research collaboration to study ways of applying virtual worlds to the product design process in her industry.  As it turns out, virtual worlds, when applied correctly, can yield huge cuts in costs and design cycle time for big business.”

“The 3D models allow factory specs to be generated automatically, minimizing errors. They allow an entire sample cycle to be cut out, reducing time to market. Three sample cycles are typically made for each product currently.  This solution will cut the entire first