Hey, and welcome back to The Interline Podcast. 

Now, mass market fashion tends to dominate the headlines, including with us. So there are times that I have to remind myself that there are different and disruptive business models out there. On demand, durable and timeless and modular styles and personalisation are three of the major ones that I can think of off the top of my head and that I would class as sidesteps or kind of complete arguments against the traditional bulk overseas order and mass inventory models. 

Today, I’m talking to someone who’s doing basically all of those at once and someone who also thinks that the time is finally upon us for AI to turn the long-standing promise of virtual fit and virtual try-on into a success. Anyone who’s been even tangentially touched by the work that’s gone into virtual try-on knows that that’s been a really contentious space on its own for years. So pairing it to other different models, each of which is also contentious in its own right, feels like a big bet. 

To gauge that bet and to discuss just how far tech is intertwined with alternative business models, my guest today is Nicola Bond, who is the CEO and Co-founder of Fittora. Nicola has even more time in industry than I do – 18 years – and she’s worked across tech companies and big box retailers. So I think you’ll be interested in what she has to say today.

Listen to the latest episodes / subscribe below, or read on for the full transcript.

NB. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

Okay, Nicola Bond, welcome to The Interline Podcast.

Thanks Ben for having me.

No, it’s our pleasure to have you. So let’s get the essentials out of the way. I did a bit of reading around on, well, obviously what you do today, but also your history. And you’ve got a lot of tech experience and a good amount of fashion experience. Which elements in the course of your journey in both of those areas led you to where you are now, to founding Fittora. And in a sentence, what is Fittora?

So at Fittora, we are offering something a bit different in made-to-order tailoring. So to explain it properly, I always start with a few questions. So where we started was asking questions like: have you ever struggled to find clothes that truly feel comfortable on your body shape or on your skin type? Or have you ever struggled to find clothes that fit you without looking like what everyone else is actually already wearing? And then another thought that we had was we all invest in skincare, but the clothes that you wear sit directly on your skin for over eight hours a day for an average person. And the wrong fabrics can actually dehydrate the skin. They can irritate the skin and they can really accelerate your visible aging. 

So by asking those questions, Fittora was born. Just to explain a bit more about what Fittora is, it’s a luxury tailoring house for women and men. I say women before men because there’s a big gap in the market for women, where every piece is designed and made to order for your body and your lifestyle by your private designer and tailor using natural materials that support skin health and anti-aging. 

I’m lucky to have spent my career across both fashion and tech. So I’ve worked as a buyer and a head of product with major global brands, but have seen a lot of the same pattern all over the world where people just feel underserved by clothes available to them. And unfortunately, one size doesn’t fit all, but the industry still acts as if it does. Fit issues, they drive massive returns, wasted inventory and a big environmental burden. 

And then I’ve also worked as a private stylist and I’ve seen how dramatically your confidence changes when garments are made for you. And my tech background showed me that AI was finally capable of solving that fit problem – but only when it’s paired with true craftsmanship. So I think tech alone can’t replace the artisanship of a tailor’s eye, but together they can reinvent the clothing industry entirely.

Okay, we’re going to pick a few of those different strands, I think. But that’s a good introduction. I will say at the top, I have a one month old baby, so I don’t need any help accelerating the visible signs of aging. That’s happening all on its own right now. You mentioned this, but for people inside fashion, the scale of returns is one of those kind of open secrets. In the halls of big brands, mass market, people will whisper that 40% of product bought is returned, that kind of thing. That would not shock people depending on the segment they were in. For people outside the industry, that’s unbelievable. If you come to fashion and you’re not immersed in the way that it works, depending on the market segment or the retail channel, if you’re failing to shift a quarter or even close to a half of all of your products, that’s alarming.

What I’m always curious to pick apart, though, is what portion of that is actually down to fit versus other kinds of, you know, bracketing or the subjective criteria, and how solvable a problem do you think fit is? So if we think of a world where your model is the prevailing one, where every garment fits or something close to it, what percentage volume of returns would we still be seeing? What is the makeup of that kind of the scale of that return problem?

Yeah, you’ve touched upon some interesting points there, Ben. So those of us that work inside fashion, we all know the truth, returns are enormous. And the statistics today tell us like one in three apparel orders are returned. And for those retailers sharing data, because not all are, 41% of those returns are 100% down to poor fit. And there’s a lot of data also telling us that 64% of shoppers say brands simply don’t fit them. And then when you couple with that: every single return carries a huge carbon impact in shipping, repackaging and wasted inventory. So fit is one of the industry’s biggest hidden costs. It’s frustrating for you as a customer. It’s incredibly damaging for the environment. And emotionally, it also leaves you feeling like your body is the problem.

But there are ways to improve this. So when something is made for your measurements, your exact proportions, and even your skin type and what’s comfortable to you, return rates drop down to single digits. So in a world where even if half of the clothing was bespoke or close to bespoke, you could see returns almost disappear, down to single figure percentages. And just those few returns that remain would be down to preference or change of mind rather than fit. So fit wouldn’t be a guessing game anymore. It would just become accurate.

Yeah, I think the only thing that would leave you then would be colour as a guessing game, but that’s a separate conversation for another time, I think. But I understand where you’re coming from. So to that end then, I don’t think it’s giving anything away to say that virtual try-on and the whole sort of spectrum of virtual fit have had a pretty checkered history over the last decade or so. 

I’ve been a tech analyst for fashion for …it’ll be 16 years in a couple of weeks. And I’ve seen lots of attempts at virtual try-on, at virtual fit. We’ve seen big platforms that were built on the promise of a big body data revolution that wound up pivoting to workwear and abandoning the ready-to-wear market. We’ve seen solutions that get stress tested and proven in other sectors like medical applications, orthotics and sports try to make inroads into fashion and then they get their fingers burned and they pull out as well. Whether that’s due to any issue with the underlying technology, underlying model, unclear. And then you’ve got sort of AR projection, body projection mapping, things that involve layering clothing on real-time video kind of trucking along in their own lane, but their impact on purchasing has been pretty minimal, I think. 

So it feels like, from 3D to AI, this is a problem that a lot of people are taking a stab at, but nobody’s really solved. You said you think AI is ready to do it now. Why do you think that is?

Yeah, so obviously there’s been massive advancements in the last decade and we’re all so lucky that tech is in our lives. I think the biggest misconception to date, though, is that virtual fit is a 3D body problem. It just isn’t. Fashion is made in 2D with patterns, fit lives in the relationship between those pattern pieces, not in a 3D avatar.

So for the last decade, companies have focused on building the perfect digital body – scans, avatars, those AR overlays that you were talking about. But when a perfect avatar doesn’t tell you how a garment will behave, it doesn’t translate it to a precise pattern. And without the right pattern, you can’t get the right fit. 

And then when we talk about data, so fashion data, it’s messy. You’ve touched upon medicine and sport, but they tend to have very controlled environments. Whereas in fashion, you’re working with selfies, and you know, not everyone can use phones as well as they think they can. You get odd angles, poor lighting. They don’t remember to follow the instructions to take your glasses off or don’t wear accessories. And it also often doesn’t pick up the different postures. So most models built for other industries just haven’t been quite robust enough yet.

And then there’s the added complexity of fabric. You know, clothing drapes, it stretches, it also compresses and reacts in heat or movement. So a lot of the tools in the past, they’ve tried to replace the tailor rather than working alongside them. But a tailor reads how you stand, where you carry your weight in your body, how you rotate your shoulders and your hips. So that sort of angle hasn’t been added on yet.

But I also think what’s interesting is companies are still trying, and there’s a lot of companies in the market using new tech. So I think they’ve generally found it easier to do one niche product area. So, workwear or a suit, because then it’s easier for them to focus on blocks. Interesting customer research we found was that customers actually wanted all of their wardrobe catered to with this technology. So we’ve really built up our tech to work alongside our tailors to be able to offer ready-to-wear. So dresses and eveningwear as well as casualwear. So I think, until you combine AI with real tailoring logic and that fabric intelligence and the human refinement, virtual fit can’t work alone without all of those things together.

Okay, I think that makes sense. Just let me play Devil’s Advocate for a second, because we do have our annual Digital Product Creation 3D Report coming out literally the week after we record this episode. I think a lot of the people reading that and a lot of the people featured in it and writing for it would probably say soft body avatars and fabric simulation should be up to the purpose here. It should be fit for everybody. You should be able to do virtual fit that way. If you are measuring compression, measuring all of the points of tension and things. 

Tell me, just walk me through why you think that’s not the case? You know, you said that fit is not a 3D body problem. Where are the limitations?

Yeah, so I think this is something that we’ve, gosh, we’ve spent the last two years on as a team. And what we learned from looking at obviously what was already in the market and how we saw tech evolving is that AI can’t just create a perfect digital clone of you. And the tech can’t either. The job to do is learning how an artisan and a master tailor that’s been doing this job for 40-50 years would adjust the pattern for you, your posture. Basically, we sort of think of it as pattern intelligence, rather than body intelligence. And so far, the industry’s only gone up to the body intelligence level. 

But also, you can’t treat fabric as an afterthought, you know, fabric should be at the start of the fit equation with how it drapes and behaves. So the tech needs to understand how different materials move on you, not just in theory. Through lots of testing and seeing it in real life. And then, you know, elevate artisans in the industry and work, use the tech alongside specialists rather than trying to replace them. And that’s where our remote tailoring has sort of become powerful.

And we’ll get to that remote tailor in a second. So if I understand correctly, what we’re essentially saying is that simulation is not robust enough or complete enough to do this by itself and that it requires a specialist to work alongside with it? 

Yeah, essentially that’s what we’re seeing today. I mean, obviously over time, the tech will take more of the heavy lifting, but today the tech’s there to increase efficiency, but still use the specialist to then push it on further. Tech alone can’t solve this problem today.

Okay. And I think that’s a very reasonable thing to say about quite a lot of different areas in fashion. So you mentioned the specialist, the remote tailor here, because I think the sector you work in is one of the most demanding when it comes to the types of products that you’re dealing in – occasionwear, tailoring, things like that – when it comes to people having very high standards for fit. But having a remote model, where people are the ‘gatekeepers’, for want of a better word, people are the ones with the specialist skills, that creates a lot of value when it comes to switching what would otherwise be a very intensive physical, time-intensive physical process to being a digital one. 

Tell me what it looks like right now – the kind of workflow when you take the technology you’ve just described and you pair it with the specialist skills that you have in presumably relatively scarce quantity? Do you see that tech then allowing those scarce specialists to do more, to be more efficient? Is that how this model scales?

Yeah, definitely. If you think about it, traditionally, if you have to go to a physical tailor, you’ll go back for weeks on end, back and forth. And now it’s a process where it can all happen digitally in a single flow. So you can meet your tailor and your stylist online. I mean, we offer in-person as well, just because not everyone is ready to do everything online, but you can physically do everything online. Then the specialists are using the tech to really fine tune the exact pattern and then make the garment with zero waste because it’s not just about getting the fit right, but it’s actually about laying the pattern right on the fabric so that every bit of fabric is saved and not wasted in the way that the garment is cut.

So really the value, it’s offering speed because the specialist can work so much more efficiently. It’s offering accuracy and consistency. And it also helps us in our QA (our quality assurance checks) because we’ve got benchmarks set that are followed globally and the tech ensures that those benchmarks are being checked no matter where the specialists are in the world.

So it allows you to have personalisation that you would normally associate with haute couture, ateliers, but it’s accessible to everyone all around the world.

One of the questions that I think comes up when people think about AI as a way of improving the throughput or the capacity or the efficiency of people who’ve already developed specialist skills is that’s wonderful, but what does it do to the pathway for new people who want to acquire those specialist skills? How does it factor into the pathway for people developing and the on-ramp for people coming into industry? I’m not saying your model is unique in this respect. We’ve had the same question when it comes to design. We’ve had the same question when it comes to makeup and photography. If the tech – and we’re talking about AI here – serves to keep a small cohort of specialists running more efficiently and expanding their throughput, how do you think about the next generation of people, of tailors, the next generation of stylists and so on?

Yeah, interesting question. And I think tech can enable both generations. The first thing I love about older generation artisans with many years of craftsmanship using AI is that because the world had moved so mass production, so fast fashion that craftsmanship was actually dying out. So now people that are honed in this technique and precision, they’re being offered more jobs again because people are realising the importance of the skills that they offer. 

But on the flip side of that, and in terms of future skills, young creatives, because obviously they’ve grown up with a lot more technology, they’re far more willing to enter the craft where technical barriers are reduced. So they don’t have to wait 20 years now to master the engineering of patternmaking. AI can train them to do it much, much quicker, but they still get to focus on the specialty, the artistry and the construction and the finishing, but learn it so much quicker with tech. We’ve found a real broad appeal to all ages and actually get people back into this skill because it was dying out, where everything’s just become machines in factories, but now young people actually want to learn to sew and craft again. So I think it’s quite exciting.

Okay, that’s a good answer. I like that. I think that makes a bunch of sense. And as I said, it’s certainly not a model or a concern that’s unique to tailoring.

I want to dig in a little bit further into where you go and what you do once you have that initial tailoring and fitting done. Because if I understand it correctly, your target delivery timeline is something like 7-10 days. And that puts things in the zone between buying from inventory – you know, traditional retail where something already exists and it’ll be with you in a couple of days – and buying genuinely bespoke under a traditional tailoring or modern kind of slow fashion model where you’d be thinking eight weeks and upwards. 

I’m curious to learn how you make that work in the middle? You know, you’re drafting custom patterns, you’re choosing fabrics, you’re cutting, you’re tailoring and you’re shipping in quite a short time span. Do you hold fabrics in inventory? Tell me how this all comes together. Do you start from common blocks and libraries? Is everything done to demand? There’s a lot that I feel like is obviously working very well for you in here. And for me, I’m just really curious to just open that black box a bit.

Yeah, I get asked this question a lot. And I won’t lie, for a long time, we were sat at the six week mark where it was taking us that long. And it’s only recently that we’ve moved to a quicker 7- 10 day timeline. And I think what people like that you’ve touched upon, people find it surprising because it sits in a space that traditionally doesn’t really exist. So it’s much faster than bespoke tailoring, but you’re not buying from mass produced stock inventory. How we’ve made it work is every garment starts from your custom pattern. So we’ve got our own Fittora AI that creates instantly based on your measurements. And as I said, all those specialties of your posture and everything and your private designer refines them with you. So, whilst you’re with the designer, they’re actively using our AI to adjust, do you want a different sleeve length? Do you want a different hem length? So the drafting work that normally takes days is actually done on like a quick 15 minute call. 

And then in terms of fabrics, whilst we don’t hold finished garments, we hold a curated collection of premium natural fabrics. We make sure we’re never holding too much so that it never goes to waste because we never want to overproduce, but we’re always ready to cut the moment that your order is finalised because we’re very specialist in terms of the natural fibres that we use. So it’s easier for us to hold the right, small quantity stockpile of fabrics perfect for a luxury tailoring product. And then also it’s in the make – how we get our speed. So our pieces move through the cutting and construction and finishing. It’s more quickly, it’s controlled by the specialists, the artisans, but they’re using tech to find efficiency at every part of production. 

So it’s small batch craftsmanship that’s supported by digital precision, if you want to think about it like that. But in terms of patterns, nothing’s off the record, nothing’s pre-graded with us. But again, because we’re using tech to very quickly spin up the pattern and then the specialist is just tweaking it. So we save days there. I mean, it’s just crazy the efficiency that we’ve found. So really it’s just, again, it’s the specialist using the tech and the AI in the right way that we can deliver custom garments in under two weeks.

And would you describe yourself as vertically integrated then? Because where that model would fall down is if there was ever any uncertainty around factory capacity and commitment and minimum order quantities and everything else. If you have that vertical integration, then you can sidestep that concern.

Yeah, definitely. I think vertical integration is key in a speed-to-market model. But it also helps you not overproduce as well because you’ve got control of production. I mean, the thing we find hardest is shipments. Because, we want to do it in the kindest way to the environment. So that’s actually what takes up the majority of our lead time, rather than the production.

Okay, interesting. That’s probably the opposite challenge to what a lot of people have, I think. Leaning a bit more into the AI side of things. So the Fittora website allows people to generate new styles based on uploaded photos and to visualise themselves wearing it. It’s kind of similar to the approach that some of the buzzy companies like Doji and so on are taking and allowing people to visualise themselves wearing third-party brands. And I think the strategy is slightly different and obviously the product mix is different, but I imagine the bet is the same, which is that if you give people the ability to “see themselves in a garment”, that doesn’t just help with some of the objective and slightly subjective fit questions, but it helps with the emotional and personalised part of decision making. 

Walk me through how that generative side of it works, why you’ve leaned into that. And do you think that kind of personalisation changes the framework that people use to make decisions about what to buy?

Yeah, yeah. And I love that there’s quite a few market players using this kind of technology now, because yes, the generative system, so we let you upload a photo and front, back and side. And what that does is you can instantly see yourself in any design. And what’s powerful about that is it just removes the uncertainty of will this work for me? Because a lot of people do need guidance in what to wear and will it suit them. Technically what’s happening, the system analyses your proportions and your posture. And it can do that from just a single full body photo. And then it reconstructs how a garment will sit and drape on your body measurements, so that’s where it’s different. It’s not thinking about an average size 10 mannequin, like mass fashion produces it’s, doing it to your shoulder width, your waist. and it’s simulating how the garment will interact with you.  

I think it’s just great that there’s been so much evolution in this because it’s answering emotional consumer needs. So when you can see your face and you in a garment, you go from imagining it to recognising it. So you can actually see that it will suit you and you’re ready to make that purchase. So I think it’s great that there’s a few market players trying this now, and I especially love that it’s happening in circular fashion as well as made-to-order fashion.

My next question is kind of a pricing and positioning one, but also kind of a market education and sustainability one. So the price bracket you’re in, forgive me if this sounds like I’m trying to pigeonhole you in a place that you’re not, but you’re not priced like traditional luxury. Neither are you priced like mass market. Again, so like the lead time, this puts you somewhere in the middle. That means that from your side, you can advertise yourself as accessible luxury or affordable luxury, which is a positive thing. It also means that for people who are used to buying off the rack, it means paying a little bit more. And I think you’ve spoken about, and I’ve seen in Fittora materials, that there’s a need to kind of educate that consumer that cost per wear is maybe a better metric to be using than just pure acquisition costs when it comes to products that fall into this kind of category. 

So you know, a £150 garment worn 200 times over a long lifespan is going to beat out the value of a £30 garment worn 10 times and thrown away after a year. It’s a cold logic to it, and people don’t usually buy with a cold logical hat on, but just walk me through how you approached that side of things because the market position kind of puts you on the front foot for people who are used to buying luxury but slightly on the back foot for people who aren’t. 

Yeah, you’re right there. You’re right there. We do like to be accessible luxury for everyone. And this is where the sort of cost per wear logic came from, just so people understand that actually investing in the right pieces that you’ll wear again and again. And it might only be sort of £20 more than something from the high street, but you’ll actually get so much more wear from that and probably save money in the long run. 

So, yes, cost per wear, it’s like you say, called logic, but we were trying to just think of a way to make it resonate with people where, you know, there’s so much market data about how much money’s been thrown away and how clothes are just thrown away every year. So we wanted to make that resonate with the market. Because when something actually fits your body perfectly, you reach for it again and again, and that’s really what changes behaviour. 

So what we’ve tried to do is make longevity of clothes become emotional rather than mathematical. So we’ve built a digital wardrobe. So every time you wear the garment, you can tap, there’s an NFC chip in your garment. So you can tap it and just say, I’m wearing this today. And that way you’re tracking your wear, you’re seeing how often you’re getting use out of this garment. And then also it teaches you how to then outfit it with other items in your wardrobe. So again, what we’ve seen with our customers is people are wearing their pieces five times longer. So the garments are lasting five times longer in their lifetime. And that’s great for the customer and that’s great for the environment. And it’s a great piece of transparency that we encourage more of the market to adopt.

Okay, that’s good. And I think you hit it on the head when you said making it an emotional choice rather than a purely mathematical one. I think that’s definitely the right way to frame it. 

Okay, thinking back to AI for a second. I believe you’re part of the Nvidia Inception program, and I think that’s as good a testament as any to the weight and the emphasis that you’re placing on AI as part of not just your model, but clearly, you know, an awareness and a vision for where the wider industry is headed. 

What’s your perspective on where things are headed with generative AI in general? Where is it going to find the most traction in fashion? Obviously, you’ve got your own use cases, but I’m keen to hear what else you think is on the horizon as well.

Yeah, and we’re very proud to be part of the Nvidia Inception program because it just reinforces something that we’ve believed from day one: that the future of fashion, as I’ve said, it’s not just 3D graphics, it’s intelligent decision making. And, I think what’s key is generative AI. It’s going to reshape how garments are designed, fitted, produced, and then cared for throughout their lifetime by customers. 

So, whilst 3D is fantastic for visualisation and the industry’s come so far, what we’re loving about AI is it then helps you create the right idea. So 3D answers the question, what does it look like? But then AI answers the harder question, how do we actually make this for this particular body type? So where you can solve structural problems in fashion using AI is fit, waist, sizing, and inventory, and it can help overcome the emotional disconnect people feel from their clothes. So as I’ve said, it’s not just visual, it’s functional, it understands the garment and engineering level. And this is what makes it powerful for sustainability. AI lets you make clothing on demand, in the right size the first time without that overproduction. So it’s connecting the dots between design, personalisation and environmental impact. So I think for the industry where we all know we have a big waste problem, it’s so fundamental and it will shift how people engage with their clothing.

Okay, excellent. And now obviously you do use it for the generative stuff that we talked about where people are generating images of themselves wearing garments. Do you use it for the non-generative product photography that you put on the PDP pages?

Yeah, I think to be as successful as possible and give the customer what they want as quickly as possible, you need to really tap into whatever AI is available these days. Brands are using it all over the world in different ways and it’s great that customers are open to that. So yeah, we definitely use AI every step of the journey.

Okay, perfect. Good answer. Well, we’ll be doing our next AI Report in spring so maybe I will get in touch and get your opinion on what some of those multiple use cases look. 

Now, my final question is, aside from AI, what three things do you think are going to define fashion in 2026? What should our audience be expecting to see? What are those three things? They can be technologies, market forces, they can be a combination of different factors.

Okay, yes, I think there’s a lot happening in the industry right now. I think regulation and traceability is going to be huge. So by 2027, every textile product sold in the EU will legally require a digital product passport. So what that means is brands have to disclose where materials come from, how the garments are made and what’s their environmental footprint. Forbes is calling it out as the most significant shift in fashion law in decades. And to be honest, that really gave us the inspiration for the Fittora NFC chip and the digital wardrobe. But I think it’s going to be really good for customers getting that traceability of their product and understanding how their garments came to life. So I think that’s a big one for 2026 to get ready for 2027. 

I also think zero waste and circularity will continue to ramp up. You know, there’s a lot of growth in circularity brands, there’s big consumer appetite for it. And the traditional buying model of producing huge volumes of stock and hoping it sells is slowing down, because returns, markdowns and that unsold inventory are costing billions every year. So I think that’s another one to watch. And I think that’s again, great for the customer. 

And then something very different. I hope, but I do believe that biodegradable, regenerative and next gen materials will continue to rise. You know, there’s a big material revolution happening and it’s obviously key for sustainability, but there’s also new ways to tap into it for wellness. So a lot of brands are now investing in biodegradable textiles, regenerative cotton and recycled fibre loops. And that’s obviously coming from regulation, but also consumer pressure. So I think that’s another exciting one to watch. 

And really fashion, it’s moving toward a world where what you wear is better for your body, better for the planet and built to last. And I think that’s a shift that we can all get behind and get excited by.

Perfect. Terrific answer to bring us to a close. Nicola, thank you so much for coming on as a guest. It’s been great to have you. And I hope we do get the chance to pick up this AI conversation as it develops

Yes, definitely Ben and thanks again for having me.

It’s been a pleasure.

Thanks.

That’s the end of my conversation with Nicola. I think you can probably hear some of my tech-weary cynicism coming through in some of those follow-up questions that I asked her, especially where virtual try-on is concerned. But I think you’ll also agree that Nicola’s clearly thought about every element of what she and her team are doing. And I think if there’s going to be a major disruption to virtual fit, to production on demand, to personalisation, to this middle ground between traditional tailoring and mass market where things are bespoke and where technology is an important lever. If there’s going to be a tipping point, if there’s going to be a disruption in there, then AI should really be it. 

On that basis, I think we’ll loop back to some of these points in the 2026 AI Report and maybe we’ll hear from Nicola again. But for now, thanks for listening and I’ll talk to you again soon.

Ben is a senior fashion technology storyteller, analyst, and moderator with more than a decade's experience in retail.