Things often come full circle and that certainly seems to be the case with Lucy Aylen’s Never Fully Dressed fashion label. What started as a business personally styling customers on London market stalls is now, 17 years later, using artificial intelligence to offer shoppers the chance to be styled through an immersive digital shopfront on their mobile phones.

Born into an East London family of market traders, Aylen credits her grandfather for setting her fashion career in motion, after he bought her a sewing machine that she’d use to customise clothes in her parents’ attic. Never Fully Dressed began selling vibrant, hand-sewn clothes at Portobello and Spitalfields markets. It was here that the brand’s signature multi-wear concept was born.

From humble beginnings – news initially spread through word-of-mouth and early social media – Never Fully Dressed evolved into a global fashion business built around expressive dressing, a tight-knit community of followers and the idea that clothes should work with the wearer, rather than dictate how they should look. With inclusive sizing ranging from UK 6 to 28, and a particular emphasis on multi-wear pieces, the company’s prints are designed in-house, while many of its designs are deliberately versatile, allowing one piece to be styled in different ways and across different occasions. It now operates stores in Buckhurst Hill, East London, and SoHo, New York.

With styling having been central to the brand since its earliest days, the move into AI-powered personal dressing feels particularly natural. Rather than simply scrolling through products, shoppers can use the new AI stylist to discover personalised outfit suggestions, helping them navigate the brand’s colourful, print-led collections according to their individual style and the occasions for which they are dressing. The experience is designed to take the guesswork out of online shopping and make discovering an entire look feel more like having a conversation with a stylist than browsing an ecommerce website.

So, how does the new AI tool work? Instead of starting with a product, shoppers begin with a problem. A wedding outfit, a holiday wardrobe, an office look, or simply something that feels different can become the starting point for an edited selection. An online agent will then highlight products and suggest ways to wear them and what with. Send in pictures of your face and appropriate body part, and the site will create an avatar and allow you to try things on virtually. Each live try-on session lasts 30 seconds, but you can re-play the recording as many times as you like.

Free to anyone with WiFi and a screen, the future of personal shopping may just have arrived.

Visit ai.neverfullydressed.com