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AI Tailors Can Wait (bloomberg.com)
Bloomberg Businessweek: Original Stitch has all the trappings of an e-commerce success story. The pitch is simple: Original Stitch uses computer-vision software to review photos of your most beloved dress shirts uploaded to the company website, then delivers perfectly tailored copies. We tried it -- the only problem was that it didn't work. When the first shirt arrived too tight around the chest and too long in the sleeves, we figured an editor's sloppy photography was to blame, but the problems persisted with a second attempt. A third shirt, ordered under a different name to make sure we wouldn't get special treatment, could barely be buttoned up. The sleeves felt like tourniquets. "We tried to push the envelope," Original Stitch founder Jin Koh acknowledged after we confronted him with the results. "Obviously, it's still in beta." In December, three months after launching the service, Koh quietly pulled it down. He's returned to asking users to fill out a questionnaire with their own measurements while he works out the bugs.
Last year I ordered a t-shirt from Teespring for Christmas: "I work out so I can eat all the holiday cookies." The website had a new algorithm for determining best size. I put in my height, weight and body shape. The answer was 5XL. Uh, no. I was able to specify 2XL instead. That shirt when I got it fit comfortably. If I had ordered the 5XL, it would have fit me like a circus tent.