By Jennifer Zaino

Robert Savage is convinced he's seen the future of retailing, and he credits his 8-year-old daughter for the insight. Observing her use of the Internet and text messaging to share experiences with friends, the president of Nanette Lepore fashions had an epiphany: Social networking is changing the expectations of young people in myriad ways. Sooner or later, it's going to affect the way they want to shop.

If Savage has his way, it will be sooner. He hopes to partner with a high-end department store where Nanette Lepore clothing is sold to offer consumers an RFID-enabled "social retailing" shopping experience. It would allow a woman to show remote friends and family the items she's considering and get their immediate feedback. The concept was tested in March for three days at Bloomingdale's in Manhattan. "We want to be cutting-edge not only in fashion, but in retail as well," he says. "It's good for the brand."

Bloomingdale's customers enjoyed the Nanette Lepore social-retailing shopping experience. They liked using the interactive mirror to get feedback from friends.

Savage has been collaborating with IconNicholson, a full-service digital agency that worked on an RFID installation at Prada's Manhattan store, which included reader-equipped hot spots where customers could take a tagged product to find out whether it was available in different sizes or colors. (A fire about a year ago destroyed much of the RFID infrastructure.) In a real-world deployment, the Nanette Lepore RFID project could work like this: A shopper would go to an area outside the dressing room where a three-paneled interactive mirror would be located. The mirror would have a built-in RFID interrogator and a high-definition video camera, and the Nanette Lepore fashions would carry ultrahigh-frequency tags. When the shopper stood in front of the mirror with the tagged clothing, the mirror could display information such as other sizes or colors of the items in stock, or recommend accessories to pair with the outfit.