Coming Soon

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44,017
2024-04-01 to 2025-03-31
Collaborative R&D
The fashion industry, a major global contributor to waste and emissions, stands at a pivotal point where circular innovation can play a transformative role. The second-hand clothing market is expected to grow 127% by 2026 with online resale, the fastest growing sector (ThredUp,2022;ThredUp, 2023). However, this market still faces significant challenges. For new, first-hand items, retailers have comprehensive information at their disposal - everything from recommended retail prices to product discovery insights. This level of detail is conspicuously absent in the pre-owned apparel sector, making scaling up and meeting buyer expectations both costly and time-intensive. This lack of reliable product information hampers the growth of the resale market. The proposed project leverages Artificial Intelligence (AI) to address a key barrier to scale for fashion resellers: pricing complexity. Kelp's solution delivers an API for retrieval of comprehensive item data, including pricing history and other metadata, allowing clients to make data-driven decisions. This enables clients to both scale to demand and maximise profits and supports the transition to an AI-enabled economy, aligned with point 2 of the National AI Strategy: to make sure that AI benefits all sectors and regions. By developing algorithms for real-time pricing and market trend analysis, this collaborative project aligns with the need for AI research to have a clear commercial orientation, accelerating the transition from research to impactful applications. The lead for this project is UK-based fashion technology SME Kelp Technologies Limited (Kelp) has a core project team of Edward Lello (CEO), Connor Mattinson (CTO), Felix Jackson (COO), and Jack Cardwell (CIO). Kelp is collaborating with a research partner, the Centre for Applications of the Mathematical and Computing Sciences (CAMaCS) at The University of Warwick (Warwick) a registered academic institution with a core project team of Professor Martin Lotz (Principal Investigator) Professor Andreas Kyprianou (Co-Investigator), Dr Julio Hurtado (Innovation Research Assistant 1), Jeremy Worsfold (Innovation Research Assistant 2) and Dr. Jane Webb (Sustainability Advisor). Kelp is also collaborating with two end users in the priority sector creative industries for this project. Depop Limited (Depop) a UK-based Large Enterprise with a core project team of Alice Jacques (Head of Machine Learning) & Rafe Colburn (CTO). Selfridges Retail Limited (Selfridges) is a UK-based Large Enterprise with a core project team of Ella Gould (Head of Sustainability & Innovation).