Shopping’s Digital Future Is Weirdly Human

Technology really is upending the shopping experience—just not in the ways you might think. GQ’s Rachel Tashjian explores the cutting edge of fashion’s changing retail universe to uncover how we will buy the pants of the future.

The year is 2027. Maybe there’s a new president, maybe we persuaded Phoebe Waller-Bridge to do another season of Fleabag, and maybe cars can finally fly, but one thing is certain: You need a new pair of pants. How these pants might get from a designer’s brain to your closet is a contentious question—one that billionaires and smart people alike are answering with aggressive entrepreneurialism. The phrase “retail apocalypse” loomed over the past decade like a ghost whose haunted houses were empty malls, as technology disrupted and upended almost everything about the way we shop. Convenience and efficiency—never visit a store and still get that Prada jacket tomorrow!—drove consumerism. This transition allegedly spelled the end of brick-and-mortar stores and the domination of online shopping, and replaced sales associates with highly skilled robots, as speed and availability became the ultimate luxuries. […]

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