Brief:
- Perfect Corp., developer of the YouCam Makeup mobile app that lets people virtually sample cosmetics, teamed with Nolcha Shows to create an augmented reality (AR) experience for New York Fashion Week, which runs Sept. 7-13, according to a press release.
- The app features four virtual looks from independent designers that participated in this year's Nolcha runway shows: Luyang by Yanglu, Neubyrne, All Comes From Nothing and W.Reflex. YouCam Makeup provided a live stream of the Nolcha shows in its app and on its Facebook Live page on Sept. 8.
- Nolcha Shows has been around for 10 years to promote new fashion designers during New York Fashion Week.
Insight:
YouCam's partnership with Nolcha is the latest example of how beauty, entertainment and mobile technology are proving to be a compelling mix, especially when connecting with young consumers. Major companies like L'Oréal and Sephora's Virtual Artist app have also incorporated AR tech into their marketing to engage customers and help them shop online, so it's not a stretch to expect that more fashion and cosmetics brands will eventually follow suit. Perfect's 500 million app downloads demonstrate that consumers are experimenting with AR to virtually test new looks and also access more immersive content tied to major events like New York Fashion Week.
AR, which puts digital overlays onto real-world objects and spaces via smartphone cameras, is about to get a major boost with the release of Apple's iOS 11. Perfect is among the companies that have used the technology for years, but Apple's ARKit, which comes packaged as part of iOS 11, along with new developer platforms from Google and Facebook have given a wider group of marketers access to AR features for mobile devices.
Consumer spending on VR and AR is expected to more than double each year for the next four years to $215 billion worldwide by 2021, according to the International Data Corporation. That kind of potential market growth will likely compel developers to put their creative energies into apps that can reach millions of consumers via mobile devices.
