PVH – Tommy Hilfiger

In an world where all businesses are looking to operate in a greener way, PVH and their brand Tommy Hilfiger are exploring the metaverse and digital showrooms to develop their garments and showcase them to buyers.

In the past garment development has meant creating many samples and fabric swatches that their buyers explore and choose to make their purchasing decisions. Ultimately at the end of the season most of these samples become redundant and are destined for the scrap heap.

With offices all over the world and many buyers PVH realised that there must be another way to convey their designs without the use of these, mostly, one-use items.

The metaverse and web3 technologies provide many options to visually present and engage buyers with new garment designs in AR, VR and XR but don’t connect the user with a sense of touch which is crucial when choosing fabrics.

Working with Outform, FLOATING POINT was tasked with researching, selecting, developing and presenting haptic technology that would allow PVH’s buyers to virtually feel the range of fabrics used within their new season garment designs.

Haptics, or the sense of touch, is unique among the senses in that it is bilateral with two aspects rather than one. Surfaces that are touch-enabled can both provide and receive touch input. This two-way relationship between motion and force is at the heart of haptic technology.

FLOATING POINT researched a number of haptic technologies including surface based electro adhesion haptics and ultrasound haptics that use mid-air haptic sensations using focused ultrasound waves. Both of these technologies provide impressive experiences when developed for fabrics.

FLOATING POINT presented the haptic technologies that were developed for specific fabrics at PVH partner days to their buyers and clients. The feedback was extremely positive and PVH continue to develop the application of the technology into their digital showrooms.