One of the big trends that has reshaped the fashion industry in recent years is the concept of a digital twin. These virtual replicas of physical products, such as outerwear or accessories, became popular as a way to enhance the product development cycle.
Tapestry, the parent company behind iconic brands such as Coach, Kate Spade New York, and Stuart Weitzman, is now leveraging generative AI through Adobe Firefly (a commercially-safe family of creative generative AI models). The company is training Firefly with their own proprietary assets and creating a customized model. This means that when text prompts are used to generate a new image, the generation will match the brand’s identity.
The team had a breakthrough moment where an initial test of their Firefly Custom Model produced tailored digital twins that accurately mirrored products already seen on store shelves. It was a big unlock that allows Tapestry to scale a critical internal service—allowing teams to better ideate and deliver products that resonate.
“At Tapestry DPC, we understood the potential for generative AI to alleviate the bottlenecks that were preventing us from scaling our digital twins, but we needed a trusted partner that was reliable and ethical in their approach to the technology” said J.J. Camara, Senior Director of Digital Product Creation, Tapestry. “We have a long relationship with Adobe, and our teams love their design tools. We felt confident in what Adobe Firefly could generate, and the result from our customized model will dramatically change how we support our brands from concept to consumer.”
The Tapestry team gathered a set of images of existing Coach handbags and used them for training single-concept models for each bag, object and style. It allowed Adobe Firefly to ingest different “Coach Codes,” which are design components such as the iconic hang tag or nuances around materials and hardware. In the early test mentioned previously, the team used the prompt “tabby handbag made of shearling fluffy material” (the Coach Tabby bag, launched in 2019, has become one of the most popular handbags for the company). Firefly generated an image that stunned the team: The customized model was able to produce a virtual replica that looked nearly identical to a Tabby bag variation that was currently in the market.
Digital twins are widely used across teams at Tapestry. They are shown in focus groups for instance, to gather direct consumer feedback that informs the product. The Strategy and Global Visual Experience teams also use digital twins to scale content for everything from social media campaigns to in-store merchandising. And when their data science is enhanced with digital twins, teams can extract knowledge and insights that can be used to inform decisions and predictions on how they create, make and sell product. By tapping customized models, the team will be better equipped to fulfill the insatiable demand, without any sacrifice to quality or consistency.
Tapestry is now embracing Adobe Firefly Services as well—a collection of creative and generative APIs and services for enterprises—to augment other processes including automating the manual steps that are involved in creating images for internal merchandising portals.
