For the entrepreneur and tailor Tessa Wardenburg, fashion and technology go hand in hand. “Now all I need to do is convince the rest of the fashion industry that, with the help of AI, we can reduce waste and thus make more profit.”

“I have a rack full of clothes here. Wanna see?” It’s not an invitation you expect to get in a tech hub. Though it probably says something about the variety of companies at the Wintercircus Startup Campus. And why shouldn’t a trillion-dollar industry like fashion also need technology?

“Make no mistake,” says Tessa Wardenburg,” SCIMM is not a fashion company. We are a data company that develops technology for the fashion industry.” It's something the entrepreneur believes is sorely needed because the fashion industry is not only unsustainable but also unprofitable. “Sixty percent of clothing produced today is never sold. In what world does that make sense? It creates a gigantic amount of waste and slashes revenue.”

For Tessa, the problem starts with our nearly century-old sizing system that determines whether someone needs an S, M, or L. “That system was put in place so the industry could start scaling. But I have worked in retail for a long time, and I can assure you, it doesn’t add up. All those sizes take the average of a whole bunch of people. And so all our clothes are made for a type of person that doesn’t exist because nobody has those average sizes. Moreover, they vary from country to country, ethnicity to ethnicity, and even sector to sector.”

The entrepreneur/tailor takes the example of the Royal Belgian Football Association, for which she designed a ready-to-wear collection. “In 2012, Belgium scanned some 1,200 people to determine the average sizes in the country. But at the Football Association, you have soccer players with gigantic upper legs and executives with somewhat larger waists. So, I redid the whole ‘exercise’ and scanned about a hundred people within the association. And guess what? Only 18% of the people there matched the national average. But with my scans and data, I produced a ready-to-wear collection that fit 89% of the Royal Belgian Football Association - like a glove!”

And that’s precisely what SCIMM, the startup that Tessa Wardenburg began with Yannis De Cleene, is all about: making sure more clothes fit more people. Often simply by pointing those people in the direction of the right clothes. “And no longer with labels like S, M, or L because those don’t mean anything if you order online. Sometimes you might need M, sometimes L, and quite often neither size will fit you - resulting in vast amounts of clothes returned every day. So let’s forget about that! You could be blue instead of S or M, and I’m violet. Admittedly, twenty years ago, such a system with a hundred different ‘sizes’ would have been super complex, but with all the AI and machine learning today, it is perfectly doable. We could even take it one step further and produce a ‘size you,’ like what we’re doing with Bodhi Cycling right now. With a simple mobile scan of Jeroen Van Godtsenhoven, we produced the perfect-size workout gear for the Belgian tech expert and cycling enthusiast. So, no fitting session, no returns, no waste, and one very happy customer.”

For the AI and machine learning part, Tessa went looking for a co-founder like Yannis De Cleene - an experienced app developer who had already built a unique identifier from scratch with the hugely successful digital ID tool itsme. It's also why she has now moved her clothes rack to the Wintercircus Startup Campus. “I know the textile industry, but I’m not a software developer - yet. I’m working on that! Still, even if I already mastered it all, I would want to surround myself with the best flipping techies. And they are right here! This place is where SCIMM can continue to grow, with all this know-how under one roof. Even if I have to drive from Antwerp to Ghent for it daily.”

It is obviously no coincidence that, until recently, the tailor roamed mainly in Antwerp. But it is also no coincidence that she is now spending most of her time in Ghent. “I notice that the fashion world is often averse to technology. You could even say they’re afraid of it. At the same time, the Antwerp fashion scene got to where it is because it has been disruptive since the 1980s - on a creative level. Today, I find that creativity, energy, and desire to make the world a better place and paint outside the lines at Wintercircus. Everyone here wants to move ahead, which also gives me the energy to continue.”

“Well, that and the focaccia from our on-site bakery, Bakker Klaas, of course.”