One of the obvious challenges of pure-play e-tailing is making the intangible tangible. Think of the offline designer clothes shopping experience for a minute… exclusive boutiques, pampering sales staff, the beautiful packaging purchases are wrapped up in – it’s all in the attention to detail. Now layer in the fact that this is also very frequently a social activity and it seems damn near impossible to replicate this online.

However, there have been some valiant efforts: invite only shopping sites like Rue La La and Gilt mimic the air of exclusivity; ASOS offers round the clock customer service; and Net-a-Porter ships out orders in big black boxes filled with tissue paper and sealed with expertly tied bows.

And now Tobi has seriously upped the ante by integrating Fashionista, an augmented reality dressing room app into it’s website. Created by interactive marketing agency Zugara, the application enables shoppers to virtually try on clothes using their webcams and flash-based AR technology. Once ‘dressed’, the user can take a snapshot to be emailed or posted to Facebook. No, those pants don’t make your butt look big…

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