--- title: "Walmart App Virtually Tries Clothes on Your Body… If You Strip" description: "Walmart offers a solution to online clothes shoppers in the form of a free virtual fitting room in its app. But it's a little invasive." date: "2022-09-20" modified: "2022-09-20" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/walmart-app-virtual-fitting" categories: - "Future Society" tags: - "artificial intelligence" - "augmented reality" - "the digest" - "walmart" --- # Walmart App Virtually Tries Clothes on Your Body… If You Strip ![Walmart offers a solution to online clothes shoppers in the form of a free virtual fitting room in its app. But it's a little invasive.]() *\Image: Walmart\* ## Wardrobe Function Shopping for clothes online is always a gamble. Sure, you might find better prices, but you won’t know if the fit is right until you try it on for real. Enter Walmart's proposed solution: a [just-]()[launched ]()[feature]() in its iOS app, Walmart’s "[Be Your Own Model]()" allows customers to virtually try on its selection of clothes. Rather than clunkily superimposing the clothes over a picture of yourself like a bad Photoshop job, the app uses "algorithms and intricate machine learning" — corporate marketing for, yes, AI — to realistically shape the clothes around a customer’s body. Walmart says its app even accounts for how fabric might drape depending on its weight, and realistically simulates shadows. Just as impressive is the sheer quantity of items this feature is compatible with: over 270,000 clothing items, the company says. The one catch? To use the "Be Your Own Model" feature, customers will have to be pretty scantily clad, down to tight underwear/shorts and a top. That’s more than a little invasive. Whether the feature will be as effective wearing other similarly tight but less revealing clothing remains to be seen. ## Fashion Model The release comes off the back of Walmart’s [acquisition of Zeekit]() in 2021, a virtual fitting startup. And sorry, men, unless you like women’s fashion, this one’s a wash: it doesn’t look like Walmart’s newfangled feature support’s men’s fashion at all, [according to *The Verge*](). But truthfully, should anyone use this? How much do we trust Walmart, a corporation that's allegedly [violated privacy laws]() in the past, with pictures of our near-naked bodies? A data breach would be disastrous, potentially releasing revealing photos of countless customers. And God forbid if any of them are children. So is the feature convenient? Sure. But feeling uncomfortable with its invasiveness is more than warranted. Surely at some point software will be able to pull off the same feat without making you strip, right? **More on Walmart:** [*Walmart Announces Drone Deliveries to 4 Million Households*]() ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()