At the All-Star game in New Orleans, the NBA installed four virtual dressing rooms in its official apparel stores from a Spanish spinoff called Aitech. The company’s system—aiMirror—lets people try on sports apparel virtually.
The NBA’s All-Star weekend also served as a showcase for the Spanish company Aitech, thanks to an agreement it reached with technology giant Cisco. This accord will help Aitech to distribute its technology in the US.
The NBA installed four virtual dressing rooms in its official apparel shops from the company Aitech, a spinoff from Barcelona university UAB (Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona). Aitech was founded in 2008 and includes researchers from both the UAB and Spanish university Universidad Pompeu Fabra.
These virtual dressing rooms have a high definition screen and a visual recognition system that records a user’s image and detects his or her movements. A customer sees his image reflected in the screen as if it were a mirror. He then chooses a garment to try on, and it instantly becomes superimposed on his image, as if he were really wearing it. The user can move about, change the size or try on a different color. The system lets the user take a picture as well, which can be sent by email or shared on social networks.

This is the company’s second project in the US, and Aitech believes that the exposure from the All-Star game could be a catalyst for its technology. In January the Glendale Galleria shopping center in California exhibited the aiMirror virtual dressing room for four days and more than 900 people used it, trying on 8,000 garments. The Spanish company has done other exhibitions mainly in the United Kingdom, at John Lewis and Tesco stores, as well as at events such as the presentation of new uniforms for the Tottenham Hotspur FC or at London Fashion Weekend.