Louise Laing on Fashion’s Next Stage: phygital start-ups

Hello there fashion innovators, digital dreamers. Today’s Dialogz dives into the crossroads of couture and code. We spoke with Louise Laing — a global fashion leader who went from saving millions at Burberry to scaling Shrimps London Ltd into a global brand, and now to founding PhygitalTwin and Phygen.io, two platforms reimagining fashion for the digital-physical era.

For Louise, the red thread is clear: shorten lead times, cut costs, improve margins — and now, use technology to do it all with less waste and more creativity.

🌟 From Burberry to PhygitalTwin

Louise has spent 20+ years building and scaling fashion businesses. At Burberry she saved ~£3 million annually through smarter sourcing; at Reiss she streamlined operations; and at Shrimps she grew a small London label into a profitable global brand.

📢 “The red thread is simple: shorten lead times, cut costs, and improve margin. Today I’m doing the same with technology: PhygitalTwin automates sketch-to-skin with on-demand attached, and PHYGEN streamlines sketch-to-pattern. It’s about moving from sketch to screen to street in days, not months.”

🦊 Kiki: That’s the real deal. Fashion has lived off endless samples, wasted stock, and “hope this sells.” Louise is cutting that cycle down to gamer speed — and that’s exactly the disruption this industry needs.

🛒 Gaming as the Next E-Commerce

Louise believes gaming is about to become the biggest shopping mall Gen Z and Alpha will ever walk into.

📢 “Gen Z and Alpha often spend twice as much time in games as in real life, and 84% say their IRL choices are influenced through their avatars first. As platforms like Roblox roll out commerce rails, digital to physical becomes practical: see it, wear it online, get it in real life.”

The model flips traditional fashion: instead of producing in bulk, drops are on-demand and zero-waste. And gamers are fine waiting 2–4 weeks if it means exclusivity and personalisation.

🦊 Kiki: She’s not wrong. Gamers already wait months for DLC — waiting a few weeks for a limited-edition jacket that also upgrades your avatar? Easy win.

🧍 Virtual Fashion, Real Identity

Skins and cosmetics already shape self-expression, but Louise sees the next wave as digital → physical feedback loops.

📢 “The next great ‘physical’ designers may emerge from 3D artists and virtual creators, with communities co-creating what lands in real life.”

🦊 Kiki: Translation: your next BALENCIAGA might come from Blender, not Paris. And that’s exactly why fashion houses need to stop sneering at skins — the new icons are leveling up in Unity.

🤖 AI & Automation as Compression

PhygitalTwin and PHYGEN aren’t just buzzwords — they’re AI engines cutting bottlenecks.

📢 “AI is the compression layer between idea, in-game, and in-hand. PhygitalTwin standardises assets across avatars and platforms. PHYGEN automates sketch-to-pattern with fewer manual steps and samples. The net effect is faster launches, lower cost and waste, and products that reflect real demand.”

🦊 Kiki: AI here isn’t about making pretty prompts — it’s about killing months of pattern-cutting grunt work. For once, automation is making fashion sustainable and faster. That’s a combo gamers and brands will both love.

🎮 How Studios Should Enter

Louise’s advice for studios and indies? Don’t overthink it.

📢 “Start small and learn fast. Pick one IP, launch three to five skins, A/B test for a week, keep the winners, then flip to physical on-demand with no inventory risk. Know your audience; don’t just port a runway look into UGC and hope it sells.”

🦊 Kiki: Indie devs — that’s your cheat code. Stop dreaming about a Gucci collab and just test three skins. If it lands? Print it. If not? Delete it.

👩💻 Recode the Curriculum

Beyond business, Louise is building Recode the Curriculum to close the gender gap in tech. It started at home, with her two teenage daughters who loved games but felt tech wasn’t “for them.”

📢 “We met them where they play, translating tech through fashion, beauty, and gaming, with visible female founders on stage as role models. After our Francis Holland pilot, interest in tech jumped by ~45%; 67% felt more confident exploring tech, and 44% said they’d like to start a business.”

🦊 Kiki: That’s huge. Meet girls in the spaces they already love — fashion, beauty, gaming — and suddenly tech doesn’t feel like math homework, it feels like opportunity.

🎨 If She Could Design One Look

Louise’s dream phygital outfit? Eevee from Pokémon.

📢 “A modular ‘evolution’ capsule: in-game, the look morphs to match each evolution; in real life, a reversible jacket with NFC patches that unlock matching digital variants.”

🦊 Kiki: Genius. Finally, a drop that evolves with you. Take notes, fashion houses — Pokémon just beat you at your own game.

🍪 Last Bite

From Burberry boardrooms to phygital start-ups, Louise Laing is building faster, smarter, and fairer systems for fashion. Whether it’s PhygitalTwin cutting skin workflows, PHYGEN automating patterns, or Recode the Curriculum inspiring the next generation, her vision is clear: fashion belongs as much in gaming as on the runway.

Stay tuned — because the future of drip isn’t seasonal. It’s playable.