Alan Boehme is examining how H&M’s clothes could monitor your heart rate or hydration levels, and how artificial intelligence could shrink H&M’s supply chain, potentially decreasing the company’s carbon footprint. In September, H&M couldn’t keep up with demand because of delays and disruptions of product flows.
Clothing companies have been experimenting on how to integrate technology into garments, which so far have struggled to gain meaningful sales. Levi’s produced a run of jackets with Google, which used Bluetooth in the cuffs to communicate with your smartphone, while Nadi X makes yoga gear that uses vibrations to improve your technique.
In comparison wearables from giants such as Apple Inc have boomed. Apple’s smartwatches have been one of its fastest growing products. “All of the components are there,” Boehme said in an interview. “It’s the ability to uniquely put things together in patterns that we as individuals or as society have not yet done.”