This week, Westfield London opens the doors to the UK’s first ever Trending Store, an AI powered fashion boutique of the future. The store will be opened from the 3^rd to 7^thJuly, stocking fashion-forward looks based on what’s trending across social media in real-time. This advancement in AI can be assisted by using simulated indoor scenes by tapping into existing datasets that can help navigate in a human-based environment.

As the worlds of online and offline retail blend and inspire each other further, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield – via its How We Shop* research platform – is looking to the future with this one-of-a-kind concept. The Trending Store brings together the smart trending intel of online shopping and fashion influence with the ‘IRL’ human interaction of traditional shopping, for the very first time.

Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield has partnered with AI trend experts Nextatlas to create the store. Via the power of machine learning, Nextatlas is able to predict the biggest breaking trends before they happen by monitoring over 3bn data points from ‘trend hunters’ globally by analysing both visual and text content from social media sources.

This trend data is then fed into a team of stylists, who will be sourcing items on demand from retailers in Westfield London including Topshop, Reiss, Whistles, Lindex and Stuart Weitzman to house within the futuristic Trending Store space. Each of the trends will be presented through mood boards and insights on Ultra HD screens provided by LG.

As the store opens Westfield London has announced some of the emerging trends that will feature in the store on the opening day:

Romantic Heroines

A revival of the romantic aesthetic as a reaction to recovering femininity, with this style having a new role in today’s political and social landscape. This trend includes voluminous dresses with floral and maximalist patterns. Social posts including the Romantic Heroines trend has increased by 20% in the last week with 9,371 posts over this period. The most of these coming from France (63%), the US (36%) and Japan (21%). Many Romantic Heroines were also spotted at Glastonbury last weekend, sporting voluminous sleeves and romantic prints at the festival.

Distopian Fashionistas

As dystopian TV shows – from Handmaid’s Tale to Black Mirror – continue to grace our screens, it seems fashion is reflecting our new small and big screen obsessions that highlight an uncertain future. City dwellers need to be able to react, and promptly adapt to an extreme and flexible landscape where they are always alone yet constantly connected. This trend also sees environmentalists, the main driver of this trend (55%), address issues such as pollution as masks and respirators begin to be worn as “cool” accessories. The trend, which is also made up of military style apparel, has witnessed an 8% growth in the last week as festival goers stepped out in key styles.

Design Therapy

An aesthetic conveying the feeling of being gently protected in a world where we’re overexposed to the digital ecosystem. Non-glossy, stain-finished and nuanced-colour items sit under this trend, most loved by the health conscious (33%) and design lovers (30%). This trend’s hotspots are the US (70%), the UK (9%) and Australia (9%). Key colours for the Design Therapy are lily white (25%), barely pink (12%) and light blue (10%).

Upon entering the hi-tech store shoppers will be greeted by screens showcasing live trend data and visual inspiration, from the colours to shop in that trend, right through to the hashtags to accompany the trend on social media.

Mario Coletti, Managing Director at Nextatlas comments: “This is the first time we’ve used our data in a physical setting and so it’s amazing to see how the platform has come to life at The Trending Store. It’s a pioneering way to demonstrate how AI will be relevant in physical retail for years to come. Our platform monitors trend creators, analysing visual content, hash tags and captions on a daily basis to project the trends of the future.”