UK fashion label Ted Baker is launching a digital portrait service at its stores in the UK, New York and Dublin. Patrons are invited to stop by their stores in New York, Dublin, London, Glasgow, Brighton, Leeds and Manchester Trafford on Saturday March 17. Shoppers will be invited to try on pieces from the collection and pose for a photo in designated photobooths. 

This campaign is done to draw customers to its shop to check out their spring collection. Their shots will be taken using instagram, which will be transmitted to the 11 illustrators at Ted Baker's London HQ for the occasion.

The artists, a mix of fashion illustrators, traditional watercolorists and contemporary graphic artists, will then choose to recreate the images, and digital copies will be sent to those whose portraits are created and posted on Ted Baker's Facebook page. A signed, framed original will be sent back to them after that. After that, there will be live and time lapse videos of the illustrators at work and it will be distributed on social channels.

The retailer's latest promotion is to engage and involve online and offline customers simultaneously. This isn't the first time Ted Baker has done something "beyond the banner". In 2010, they opened a live, Twitter operated styling studio at its London HQ. In a two hour period, a selection of U.S. fashion bloggers used twitter to direct hair stylists, makeup artists, runners and models to create different looks using Ted Baker's Autumn/Winter 2010 collection.

Needless to say they were then used in a broadcast on a public livestream and on Twitter. Fashion retailers are getting innovative. Is your business there yet?