Everyone, at one point or another, has suffered the after-effects of an impulse buy. While one roams around a store, one particular item looks interesting enough to make us take the leap and purchase it. The issue is that sometimes, once one gets home, much of that interest seems to evaporate. Either we decide that the garment doesn’t really suit us, or the issue is in the manufacturing and it does not survive one day’s wear and tear.

Fashion house Tommy Hilfiger has recently come up with a possible solution. Their line, Tommy Jeans Xplore, will contain a new technology housed in a smart chip; a technology which will be able to read how often customers wear the garment in question.

The brand says that in tracking how often people wear their clothes, they will effectively be creating a “micro-community of brand ambassadors.” The line includes a variety of items aside from jeans; such as hoodies, T-shirts, denim skirts, bags, backpacks, hats etc.

This will be achieved through an Xplore app, to which the chip will transfer information. The brand will actually offer rewards such as gift certificates, tickets etc. to customers who wear their clothing often enough. People wearing the garments will even automatically get more points every time they pass a Tommy Hilfiger store.

But before anyone begins to protest that they don’t like the idea of a piece of clothing tracking their every move, the brand has announced that users will have the option of turning the tracking chip off within the app.

Thus, it may just be that we will see a day where there is such a thing as “smart” clothing.

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