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ATELIER

Inspiration

July is a 40-year-old woman who has always loved the little ritual of getting ready. Choosing a hairstyle, experimenting with makeup, picking out an outfit, and looking in the mirror before stepping out — these were the little moments that made her feel like herself.

Then came the diagnosis.

July began chemotherapy, facing each treatment with courage and hope. And while the treatment was helping her fight for her life, her appearance began to change too. Her hair started falling out. Her skin became different. The face she had known for years slowly began to look unfamiliar.

One morning, July stood in front of her mirror and struggled to recognise the person looking back.

She wasn't ashamed of fighting cancer. She was grateful for the treatment and the chance it gave her. But she missed the little things — choosing how to style her hair, finding makeup that felt right, enjoying her clothes, and recognising a familiar version of herself.

And we realised something.

When someone is fighting for their life, the world naturally focuses on helping them survive. But who helps them navigate the changes that come with that journey? Who reminds them that they are still allowed to feel beautiful, express themselves, and enjoy the person they see in the mirror?

That question inspired ATELIER.

We wanted to build more than a beauty application. We wanted to create a space where people could understand their changing appearance, explore new styles, and rediscover the joy of self-expression — without feeling that they have to look a certain way.

Because chemotherapy is not the enemy. It is part of a fight for life. And people going through that fight deserve support in every part of their journey.

We built ATELIER for the people who are fighting to stay alive, but still deserve to feel alive.

July is a fictional character representing a composite of experiences. Her story reminds us that the goal is never to fix someone's appearance, but to give them the freedom to express themselves and feel supported.

What It Does

ATELIER is an AI-powered personal beauty and styling platform that brings personalised beauty experiences into one place.

Its key features include:

  • AI Skin Analysis: Analyses visible skin characteristics and identifies concerns to help users better understand their skin.
  • Skin Simulation: Provides visual previews of potential changes in skin appearance.
  • Skin and Facial Profiling: Analyses skin type, facial colour tones, and facial geometry to support personalised recommendations.
  • Makeup Virtual Try-On: Allows users to experiment with makeup looks, shades, and styles virtually.
  • Clothes Virtual Try-On: Lets users preview clothing and explore different styles.
  • Hair Studio: Offers hair-related analysis, hairstyle exploration, and hair-colour visualisation.
  • Personalised Beauty Experience: Combines AI-powered insights and virtual experiences to make beauty and styling more accessible and individualised.

Disclaimer: ATELIER is not intended to diagnose or treat medical conditions. It is designed to support self-expression and personal styling.

How We Built It

We developed ATELIER by combining application development, AI-powered image analysis, and virtual try-on technology.

We integrated Perfect Corp's YouCam APIs to bring advanced beauty and styling capabilities into the platform. These integrations support experiences such as:

  • Skin analysis
  • Skin simulation
  • Fitzpatrick skin type analysis
  • Facial colour-tone analysis
  • Facial attributes and ratio analysis
  • Makeup virtual try-on
  • Clothes virtual try-on
  • Hair-related analysis

Our application connects these capabilities through a unified interface. Users can upload or capture an image, access the relevant analysis or virtual try-on experience, and explore the results within ATELIER.

We also implemented supporting application logic for image handling, API communication, processing results, and presenting personalised outputs. Where live API access is unavailable, certain features may use local processing or fallback implementations.

Challenges We Ran Into

One of our biggest challenges was integrating multiple AI-powered services into a single, cohesive application.

Each API has its own requirements for image formats, inputs, responses, and processing workflows. Managing image uploads, asynchronous tasks, API responses, and errors required careful implementation.

Another challenge was creating a smooth user experience across different features. Skin analysis, makeup try-on, clothing visualisation, and hair exploration each have different workflows, but we wanted them to feel like parts of one unified platform.

We also had to consider the sensitivity of our project's purpose. Beauty technology should not make people feel that their natural appearance needs fixing. Our goal was to create a tool that encourages choice, confidence, and self-expression.

Accomplishments That We're Proud Of

We are proud to have brought several AI-powered beauty and styling experiences together in one platform.

ATELIER combines skin analysis, facial insights, virtual makeup, clothing try-on, and hair exploration in a single application. We are especially proud of integrating YouCam technology into practical experiences that users can interact with, rather than presenting AI as just a concept.

Most importantly, we are proud of the purpose behind the project. ATELIER is built around the idea that technology should support people, not define them by their appearance.

What We Learned

Throughout this project, we learned how to integrate third-party AI APIs into a real application, manage image-based workflows, process asynchronous responses, and connect different AI capabilities through a unified user experience.

We also learned that building meaningful technology requires more than technical functionality. Understanding the people who may use a product, respecting their experiences, and designing with empathy are just as important as writing the code.

What's Next for ATELIER

We envision expanding ATELIER into a more intelligent and inclusive personal beauty and styling companion.

Our next steps include:

  • Improving personalisation
  • Expanding hairstyle and styling experiences
  • Refining skincare recommendations
  • Strengthening the reliability of our API integrations
  • Making the platform more accessible

We also hope to explore more thoughtful experiences for people navigating appearance-related changes due to medical treatment or other life circumstances, while ensuring that recommendations remain safe and that users can make informed choices.

Our Vision

We didn't build ATELIER to change who people are.

We built it to give them more ways to express who they are.

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