Robin's Nest Tries Technology on for Size

One of the newest business owners in town has brought with her a touch of modern apparel science to accompany her designs.

Robin Shaw, a 23-year-old apparel, merchandising, design and production graduate from Iowa State University, opened in The Village at Mendota Heights on Black Friday.

The women’s clothing store offers Shaw’s designs, a style she calls “sophisticated indie,” with a custom-fit twist.  

The shopping experience at starts the same as it would at many other boutiques. Customers can choose from one of her designs showcased in the store—items range in price from $150-$500.

That’s where the similarities end. 

"I’m not a tailor; I’m not a seamstress. So I design a collection just like any designer does,” said Shaw. But instead of numbered sizes or the more generic “small, medium or large,” Shaw uses a body scanner to take over 100 exact measurements of a client’s form.

From there, the patterns are altered to fit those dimensions, sewn by a U.S. manufacturer and sent directly to the customer. “She’s very energetic. She has some good ideas,” said Karen LaBat, a professor of apparel design at the University of Minnesota, who Shaw met while researching the scanner.  “I’m glad to see something new developing.”

The scanner looks much like a spacious fitting room would. In private, a client will disrobe and stand still while a line of red light smoothly glides from the top of the room to the bottom in a process that takes just a few seconds.  That data is then processed confidentially and used to customize a pattern, said Shaw.

“There’s going to be an educational period because it’s a new concept and there aren’t clothes on the rack to try on,” said Shaw. But when she explains just what the process promises—clothes made exactly to a customer’s dimensions—“They get very excited by it."

The sewing and shipping process takes two to four weeks, and Shaw said she is working on finding seamstresses and commercial knitters closer to the Twin Cities to cut that time in half.

Using the scanner in a retail setting isn’t common, said LaBat, who specializes in human dimensioning technology as well as apparel sizing. Scanners have largely found their place in research, particularly in the automobile industry.

Retailers such as Lands' End and Levi’s have only dabbled with the custom-fit modeling. LaBat said one of the biggest challenges is displaying textiles accurately on a monitor. Robin’s Nest does away with digital representations of the clothes and displays actual items from her collection in the store only. 

While the technology may be new, ultimately Shaw said she is out to solve an age-old shopping dilemma for women. One inspiration for the store is her sister, who Shaw says has a “beautiful hour-glass figure” but finds traditional sizes to be ill-fitting and frustrating. “I wanted to have a place where women could come and have it not be about a size, (but) more about how the clothes can fit them to make these women feel beautiful.”