Chic Marie, our WMNinTECH Marie-Philip Simard‘s subscription clothing rental company, came out with two game-changing initiatives just in time for the upcoming holidays.

Last week, Chic Marie announced the release of Scarlett, the first AI fashion stylist in Quebec. They also announced a new initiative called “From One Woman to Another” with Le Chaînon that will make donating old clothes easier than ever for their clients.

Scarlett is a brand new high-tech artificial intelligence system and the first turnkey custom styling service in Canada. Released in partnership with the National Research Council and Concordia University, the company is the first clothing rental platform to combine a high-end artificial intelligence system.

“There’s not a lot of AI in fashion as a whole available on the market right now,” Simard told MTLinTECH. “The way we use AI to create the perfect box for our client is a step further. Usual AI technology will gather your past history of purchases and make recommendations. Not only do we do that, but we also have a fashion survey that people complete in order to receive their box, a little bit like Frank and Oak. But we are implementing a new step.”

That new step includes pulling data about clients from third party platforms, specifically their linked social media accounts.

“For example, we might go take a look at your Facebook account if you linked it, or at your Instagram or Pinterest. We can know, for example, if you liked twenty red dresses in the past month. We would then try to include a red dress in your next box. We are also working on something with image recognition. So this is really a powerful tool we are developing in terms of fashion.”

The amount of information Scarlett has access to depends on the type of information each client chooses to disclose and on how public or private their account is. For example, if a client’s Pinterest account is linked, Scarlett can see their boards and know what type of clothes they like. Through an app like Instagram, with geo-location, the program can pick up on the client’s likes, friends, and even match postal codes to get a sense of the type of neighborhood they live in or the tastes they have.

Scarlett is free for all monthly subscription clients, they just need to opt in. People wanting to make a one-off purchas or rental without the monthly membership won’t have access.

The second announcement comes at the perfect time of the season to give back. A new partnership with Le Chaînon has the potential to turn Chic Marie into one of the largest companies donating clothing in Canada.

“One thing we realized was that a lot of our clients wanted us to take their used clothes to give to charity. They weren’t sure if the clothes they wanted to give away would go to the right place and they weren’t sure where to put it. But we did not have the structure to take all this clothing. Le Chaînon actually contacted us and we built a partnership where, when clients receive a box, they also receive a bag they can use to send us clothing they don’t want anymore. This is not clothing that we will rent, we take it at the warehouse and send it right at to Le Chaînon. There’s just not a lot of companies doing that.”

Considering that Quebecers throw away an average of more than 24 kg of clothing a year, the initiative promises to benefit everyone involved.