In collaboration with Dassault Systèmes, the Danish shoe brand ECCO will launch an exclusive footwear customization experience, Quant-U (quantified you), for the first time in Europe and for a limited time, at the prestigious Le Bon Marche Rive Gauche department store in Paris, offering a glimpse into the future of retail.
ECCO shoes will be part of Le Bon Marché’s “Geek but Chic: Shopping in the Third Millennium” exhibit February 23-April 22, a first-of-a-kind event dedicated to digital innovations and technological sensory experiences featuring 80 luxury and premium international brands. Here, on-trend, on-demand consumers can experience having a pair of shoes tailored to their individual foot structure and walking parameters. Throughout this experience, an advanced data-driven digital capture and elaboration process is combined with the physical world of a store to provide customized fit and comfort, and to show how digital data can be used for the inception of a better product.
For this process, Quant-U has been integrated with Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform to enable a cloud-based, data-driven design that works in full automation and is able to generate infinite iterations of 3D models.
In a recent survey, 81 percent of consumers expect to use digital technologies in stores and 71 percent expect to purchase fully sustainable products by 2030. Consumer brands and retailers are seeking strategic ways to deliver new experiences that meet expectations and draw consumers closer to their brand, but the use of such digital technologies in a retail environment is sometimes seen as just a trend.
Through Quant-U, ECCO reveals an experience with a purpose, to bring the best comfort to every consumer. This pushes the boundary of retail by combining digital stores with brick and mortar stores as a single multi-contact journey. Quant-U at Le Bon Marché will feature connected objects, data, artificial intelligence, simulation, cloud technologies and 3D printing in a three-step consumer experience involving real-time analysis, data-driven design on the cloud, and 3D printing.
A key functional component of footwear is manufactured on demand based on each wearer’s individual data, which is captured in real time. A learning algorithm analyses the foot data and develops the foot’s digital twin using the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. Machine learning and structural simulations generate the digital configuration, test the physical stress and resistance of the material used for the midsole, validate it and optimize it for 3D printing customized midsoles for individual comfort and performance needs – a level of customization that goes far beyond simple personalization of color or material. The 3D-printed components are produced in high quality silicone by the Dow Chemical Company in a process that allows for exceptional static and dynamic material behavior.
Since 2016, Dassault Systèmes, through its FashionLab, has collaborated with ECCO’s Innovation Lab on its Quant-U project to develop the first data-driven customized footwear experience, and thus open up possibilities of extending mass customization through the virtual world to other retail sectors.
The Quant-U experience at Le Bon Marché will run concurrently with its debut in Tokyo at the Isetan department store.
For more information on Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform: https://www.3ds.com