Amazon expands its custom-fit clothing service ‘Made for You’ with athletic tees

Amazon is expanding its experimental custom clothing service, Made for You, which allows shoppers to create clothing designed for their exact body measurements. First launched in December 2020 with casual tees, the retailer is now adding athletic shirts that can be customized in close to 50 different ways by selecting from different fit options, necklines, sleeve length, colors and more. The shirts can also include your name printed on the label as an added perk.

To use Made for You, the customer will measure their body with the Amazon app. They’ll first enter their height, weight, body style, and upload two photos. Made for You’s 3D scan technology will then use this data to determine the customer’s body measurements. Of course, those who had already ordered from Made for You in the past don’t have to repeat the process to buy the new shirt — they can just customize their new shirt and place an order.

As customers browse the various style options on the service, they can also visualize the fit of the shirt on an avatar through Made for You’s virtual try-on technology. This gives them a better idea of what the clothing would look like on their own body.

Amazon says the new athletic tees feature a soft, recycled polyester fabric with moisture-wicking and anti-odor properties. By comparison, Made for You’s original product was a casual tee that customers could choose in either soft, lightweight cotton blend fabric or a slightly stretchy, medium-weight fabric made of 100% pima cotton.

Image Credits: Amazon

If the custom garment still doesn’t fit when it arrives, customers are able to alter their measurements and receive a free replacement, the retailer notes.

While custom-fit clothing has traditionally been seen as a luxury option, Amazon’s goal has been to make custom clothing more affordable for retail shoppers through the use of technology — with the added benefit, of course, of gaining a lot of real-world data on customers’ body measurements as Amazon works to expand its own private label clothing lines. This is an area the company explored previously with its Amazon Echo Look camera that claimed to help users rate their styling choices, but seemed largely a way for Amazon to ingest data about consumers’ closets and favorite styles. Today, that Alexa device is no more, but Amazon still has data on fit from customers’ returns and from its home-try-on styling service, Prime Wardrobe.

The news of the service’s expansion shortly follows Walmart’s March launch of A.I.-powered virtual clothing try-on technology across its website and app for select garments, including its own portfolio of exclusive and private brands. Walmart last year had acquired the virtual try-on startup Zeekit, which used real-time image processing, computer vision, and deep learning techniques to show shoppers how they would look in a particular item.

While the new Walmart feature is not designed for custom-fit clothing, it’s similar to Made for You in the sense that part of the process involves using an avatar that resembles the shopper’s own body type.

Amazon has yet to share any sort of data in terms of how well its custom clothing is selling, but notes the customer response has been positive.

The new custom-fit athletic tees are priced at $25 and are available now through Made for You, in addition to the $25 casual tees.