New Look has deployed an AI visualisation solution from Fermat across its buying and design functions to accelerate product development and improve speed to market.

The rollout will drive efficiencies within its product development processes, allowing the retailer to identify emerging trends faster and bring ideas to market more quickly.

“Creativity has always been at the heart of New Look,” said its Creative Director, Anica Wislawski. “Fermat gives our designers the freedom to bring ideas to life faster, explore more creative possibilities and refine products through multiple iterations before they reach the customer.”

Leveraging AI, the solution enables New Look’s design teams to create virtual product renders, while also testing multiple design iterations, as well as prints, colourways and styling options, before producing physical samples.

This will not only accelerate product development through streamlined decision-making, but also helps the retailer cut waste associated with traditional sampling from its production processes.

“It allows us to remove time from parts of the design process and reinvest it where human creativity matters most: understanding our customer, identifying what they’ll want next and thinking about how they’ll wear and style it,” Wislawski explained.

“By combining creative instinct, customer insight and AI-powered tools, we’re able to make more informed decisions and shape trends into wearable ideas that work in everyday life. It strengthens the golden thread from concept to customer, helping us create better products, better outfits and ultimately more confidence for our customer,” she said.

The new partnership is just the latest development in the fashion retailer’s wider digital transformation strategy to leverage AI and data more widely across its business.

Last year, it announced a partnership with AI customer data cloud, Amperity, and data intelligence platform, Databricks, to unify cross-channel customer data and power omnichannel shopper experiences.