Ethical fashion lifestyle with XZ (Closet) app

The clothes you wear significantly affect the environment. Today, the fashion industry faces fuel problems during making clothes, not to mention energy problems when they get transported. Even if the clothes are made and transported, a percentage of them are eventually disposed of if unsold. Disposed clothes are incinerated, and again fuel gets used in large amounts.

Startup company STANDING OVATION in Shibuya Ward was quick to realize this. They are promoting ethical fashion that customers can do at home. Their app “XZ (Closet)” uses AI to register clothes you own and make proposals on how to coordinate them. “My Closet Function” allows you to check and realize the fashion items you have, while “AI Matching Coordinating Proposal Function” proposes coordinating them. Meanwhile, “Closet Diagnosis Function” looks back on how you have utilized your clothes in the past.

STANDING OVATION aims to create an ecosystem while enjoying fashion. Its sustainable approach allows users to make the most of their clothes with their personal online closets in their pockets. AI stylists make full use of users’ clothes and automatically propose new matching ideas, free of charge. If you don’t know how to wear clothes that you purchased in the past and have never worn, or you end up wearing the same clothes every day, all you have to do is register the clothes in your closet. XZ will then coordinate your clothes for an entire week in merely 3 seconds that goes perfectly well with the weather and temperature in the location you live.

Last month, STANDING OVATION announced a report on “Fashion and SDGs” and “Fashion Awareness Survey 2021 during times of COVID-19.” According to the surveys collected from 111 women between 25 to 35, 80% of women said they went out less frequently in the last three months than before COVID-19. Due to the lack of opportunities to go out, 68.5% answered that they want to dress up when they do. In addition, 82% said that opportunities to purchase new clothes are decreasing. 86.3% also answered that it has become more important to coordinate and match what they already own.

XZ’s methods to utilize AI stylists that effectively utilize clothes left unattended in chests and drawers fosters a reuse/circulation system. The technology they developed allows users to dress up with what they already own and enjoy fashion rather than randomly buy new clothes. STANDING OVATION believes that this approach corresponds to Goal 9 of the United Nation’s SDG Goals: “Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.”

What’s more, STANDING OVATION is taking on a new challenge too. Together with Mitsui Fudosan Co. Ltd., they are currently undergoing demonstration experiments on OMO Solution (Online Merges with Offline) at “LaLaport CLOSET” opened in “Shopping Park LaLaport TOKYO-BAY.” This service allows customers to visualize the clothes they own on a tablet, thereby allowing stylists to propose coordination that goes with what they already have. In this way, customers can purchase additional products that match with clothes they have. This will reduce the risk of buying unwanted clothes.

Whether on XZ or OMO Solution (Online Merges with Offline), STANDING OVATION wants to see a world where people can enjoy shopping while reducing clothes and money. By using their services, users can carry out SDGs activities in their own way. The more people use XZ, the more they can improve their quality of life by enjoying fashion without consuming excessively.

Finding value in clothes is both fashionable and kind to the environment. STANDING OVATION’s sustainable suggestions makes us look at fashion in a brand new way.