Ralph Lauren could let people dye their own polos next year to attract new customers

• Ralph Lauren said its NY flagship stores is getting color-dye technology that could let customers dye their own clothes by next year.
• The project was initially developed to improve the iconic apparel company’s environmental footprint in the manufacturing process.
• This DIY component to Ralph Lauren’s production line could use an “experiential retail” model to draw people back to stores.

Ralph Lauren is putting part of its production process in the hands of customers, as businesses look to the experiential retail model to draw customers back to stores.

The fashion company, known for its iconic polos, revealed its flagship stores will be equipped with new textile-coloring technology that could potentially let shoppers dye shirts in-store as early as next year, a partner with Ralph Lauren on the technology told CNBC.

The details of the in-store dyeing process, which are still largely unknown and under development, would allow let a customer take one of Ralph Lauren’s blank-slate cotton tees or polos, choose a color, and have its Color on Demand technology dye the product in-store right before purchase.

Giving the consumer some creative agency in the the production process “has always been a powerful thing,” Simeon Siegel, retail analyst at BMO Capital Markets, told CNBC. “Bringing the consumer into the story has always been a winning proposition.”

As the consumer economy re-emerges from the coronavirus pandemic, retailers will have to balance e-commerce with their brick-and-mortar models, which may mean moving toward converting larger stores into “experiential retail,” leaning on customization and rapid production. Ralph Lauren previously allowed customers to take part in the production experience, customizing colors for its iconic horse-patch to be sewn onto clothes purchased online.

“The store will become more experiential each and every day,” Siegel added. “The trick is how to capitalize on it to sell more things.”

Earlier this year, Ralph Lauren said it partnered with several materials, textile, and chemical companies, including Dow, to develop a more eco-friendly production process that relies on less water, energy use, and harmful chemicals. The companies announced a new system in March called “Color on Demand,” including a new textile treatment called ECOFAST Pure, which uses up to 40% less water, 85% fewer chemicals, and 90% less energy than traditional dyeing processes.

“Ralph Lauren obviously is a big user of cotton and to dye textiles, it takes a lot of chemicals and a lot of water and you generate a lot of waste and mainly you do that because you’re trying to use heat and pressure to put that dye into the fabric,” CEO of chemicals company Dow, Jim Fitterling, said at a CNBC summit for corporate sustainability and environmentalism.

The new color dye system could help Ralph Lauren better plan amid supply constraints that many retailers continue to face, allowing them to “better balance inventory” and more efficiently anticipate demand for their products without having to worry about ordering details, like color.

Ralph Lauren said in a press release that it is aiming to use Color on Demand in more than 80% of the company’s solid color cotton products by 2025. The company also announced earlier this month it would open-source the dyeing process for the textile industry.