Amazon Enables One-Hour Delivery Of Runway Fashions

Amazon is bringing instant gratification to a new level, offering customers the ability to purchase clothing directly from the catwalk at a London fashion show.

According to a news report in Reuters, Amazon offered one-hour delivery on clothing for the Nicopanda label, created by Diesel’s former creative director, Nicola Formichetti. The assortment available for purchase included a six-piece unisex streetwear collection that incorporates a hoodie, long-sleeved tee, bomber jacket, leggings, clutch bag and oversized scarf.

“Nicopanda’s designs immediately turn heads,” Susan Saideman, head of Amazon Fashion for Europe, said in a statement to Reuters. “We’re excited to bring such an exciting brand to our customers for the first time.”

In April, Amazon announced it won a patent for a manufacturing system that produces on-demand clothes after an order is placed. Through its digital production of clothing, Amazon will have the capability to cut and assemble fabrics via textile printers and alter clothes via camera images.

Directly from the patent, the description of this process reads as follows: “Once various textile products are printed, cut and assembled according to the orders, they can be processed through a quality check, photographed for placement in an electronic commerce system, shipped to customers and/or stored in a materials handling facility for order fulfillment. By aggregating orders from various geographic locations and coordinating apparel assembly processes on a large scale, the embodiments provide new ways to increase efficiency in apparel manufacturing.”

While the inventors of this patent have made clear this system could move into making other items, such as footwear or curtains, the current focus is on the clothing industry. This on-demand clothing manufacturing system has the possibility of turning the apparel production industry on its head. Rather than producing large quantities of the same piece of clothing, retailers would have the potential to produce only what is requested by consumers.