Peter DelRioInteractive Custom Clothes Company (IC3D)
Peter del Rio, a former head trader for Merrill Lynch with a degree in business from Tufts University, had never worked in the apparel industry before co-founding The Interactive Custom Clothes Company (IC3D) in 1996. Although his career on Wall Street was successful, del Rio had a desire to own his own business. He left his job at Merrill Lynch and founded a company with Bobbi Sue Reed, then a student at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Reed believed that mass customization was the future of the apparel industry. Interested in the technological aspects of mass customization, del Rio wanted the customer to be involved in the design and fit of the apparel products and created IC3D on this principal. Today, he is the Chief Executive Officer of IC3D and delivers customized jeans to a variety of customers. His entrepreneurial goal is for IC3D to be one of the top five apparel companies in the United States based on its personalized size and style offerings. Company Overview - Interactive Custom Clothes Company (IC3D)“What IC3D offers everyone is the freedom to have clothes just the way they want… fitting them and their lifestyle.” IC3D was founded in 1996 as an Internet-based company selling customized jeans to a new Internet friendly population. Started by Peter del Rio and Bobbi Sue Reed, the idea was to offer customized clothing online to solve fit problems that most people commonly find when shopping in stores. Most stores experience a high return rate, with approximately one out of three customers estimated to be dissatisfied with the purchases they make. IC3D’s goal was to create a 100% customer satisfaction rate by allowing customers to choose the styles of garments they wanted and fit them with a revolutionary computer generated sizing system. IC3D is a technology company as much as a clothing company. The technological foundation of IC3D is its Artificial Intelligence (AI). Using a Genetically Engineered Neural Network (GENN) as a virtual tailor and patternmaker, IC3D creates custom patterns within minutes. This allows the company to quickly send patterns to a factory where each pair of custom jeans is created individually and delivered directly to the customer within seven to ten days. With this system, there is no inventory, which also lowers costs. IC3D started with customized jeans because the founders believed that jeans were the moneymakers of the apparel industry. They also believed that jeans were the most frequently worn garment, yet the most difficult to fit. The company concentrates on its jeans business, allowing its customers to choose the cut, style, fabric, and thread color of their jeans on the website. Customers measure themselves by following instructions posted on the website and then submit their measurements online. Another option is the "copycat" feature, which allows customers to measure or send in their best fitting jeans and have a new pair created with the same measurements. As IC3D expands, the company hopes to run their own factories and be able to manufacture garments within 24 hours. It also hopes to have a 100% customer satisfaction rate and introduce other mass customized garments and accessories. Sources: |