A virtual Karlie Kloss walks through your living room in something from the latest Givenchy collection: She takes a turn and you take a closer look at the cut of the dress, the way it falls and moves across the body. You decide you like it, you want it, and you buy it — just like that. It arrives three days later.

Could this be the next step in fashion’s relationship with visual imagery?

“I don’t think it’s long. Maybe it’s five to 10 years before we’re looking at totally virtual models and totally virtual ways of seeing our clothes. All that technology is there,” said Nick Knight, the renowned fashion photographer and the mind behind what was arguably the first serious online platform for fashion film, SHOWstudio, introduced in 2000.

The website conducted a global search for new stars last October (the director Maxim Bashkaev won the 10,000 pounds, or $14,000, prize money, which is to be used to make a film for SHOWstudio with Mr. Knight’s mentoring). It also has plans for a three-day fashion film festival at the end of the year. Move over, street style.

“The Internet is probably our primary source of fashion, and I think it’s the best way of showing it — the fashion currency of the Internet will be fashion film,” Mr. Knight said.

“I see fashion film very much as an extension of fashion photography — you look at a fashion photograph and go ‘Aahh, I want to have that piece of clothing’ — that was the basic premise of the photograph,” he continued, adding that the same desire has to come from moving fashion images.

“Now we’re working in 3-D, and we weren’t before. It’s a different dimension and space, and we’re looking at a very different way of looking at imagery.”

For example, do you own your digital image? “No one has got in there yet but they really should do,” said Mr. Knight, who has been making 3-D scans of his models for years and used the technique for his “Black Skinhead” film with Kanye West. “I have data on all of these girls and it’s not long before you say, ‘Here’s a 3-D version of Karlie Kloss.”’

As computer-generated imaging and green screen already are used in filmmaking, he added, it won’t be long before they make the transition into fashion. “It’s all very technically possible — just about tying up the loose ends.”

While the reason for the intersection of fashion and the screen hasn’t changed — it still is intended to sell clothes and accessories — now those images come to us through Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, Vimeo, Vine, Twitter, Facebook, Periscope and animated gifs, the channels now used by everyone from the designer to the retailer.

“The vanguard of the 20th century was the fashion photograph. Now I think the vanguard of where we are at in the 21st century is storytelling through video,” said Brian Phillips, founder and president of the public relations agency Black Frame. The London and New York-based agency works with brands such as Kenzo (which regularly creates seasonal campaign films, the latest directed by Sean Baker of “Tangerine” and “Starlet” fame), Rodarte and Delfina Delettrez.

In 2014 Black Frame opened a division, Framework, to cater especially to the increased demand for film. “On a global level across cultures, people connect with music and movies,” said Mr. Phillips. “Video is the most compelling and interesting form of communication.”

Mr. Knight noted that every job he does now includes a request for film, sometimes with more emphasis than the photograph itself. Why?

“Everything comes alive with film: the mood, the emotion, the storytelling,” said Anne-Marie Verdin, the Mulberry brand director. “Film is the new way we absorb content, especially in a digital, mobile world. It captures attention and adds visual depth.”

The brand is finding video to be an especially valuable tool with the arrival of its new creative director, Johnny Coca. “The most viewed film of late is where Johnny talks about his vision for the brand and we see him thinking, talking and sketching,” Ms. Verdin added by email, noting that video is a direct way to engage with the consumer. “I think we are asking people to make an important decision when they are buying into the brand and the more they can really feel and see the mood, the style and the details of the brand and its designs, the better the relationship feels.”

Lorna Tucker, a filmmaker who works regularly with Vivienne Westwood, noted, “You’re more likely to pore over a film than you are a campaign still” — so job done, it resonates.

Many designers also see video as key to further an understanding of their creative goals. “Designers design clothes to be seen in movement,” the London designer Gareth Pugh said. “Fashion on a larger scale is static.” A champion of fashion film, he regularly teams up with the filmmaker Ruth Hogben to pioneering effect.

Most recently, he collaborated with the London department store Selfridges for a display that featured a dress and, alongside, a monitor playing a film of the garment being made that had been captured on Periscope, an online video channel. The video added another layer of attraction and interest to the display and, as Mr. Pugh noted, “It’s about broadening the experience of the consumer and involving them in the process.”

But fashion film, or fashion and the screen, is still very much a genre in its infancy — only about 20 years old, a short time in contrast with the lengthy careers of fashion illustration and, in turn, photography. “It always surprises me that fashion film took such a long time to take off, but that’s only because the Internet wasn’t around,” Ms. Hogben said.

Burberry is well known as a leader among adaptive brands, most recently debuting on Apple TV in January and using the platform to showcase its men’s and women’s shows. Its earlier efforts have been covered extensively, including its use of Snapchat for early looks at collections and campaigns and the Burberry Booth campaign last fall that used video-stitching technology to put customers into personalized edits of the campaign.

Christopher Bailey, the brand’s chief creative and chief executive officer, said it has been proud to partner with the British Academy of Film and Television on the Breakthrough Brits program. “The partnership identifies emerging talent and introduces them to mentors from across the industry who help them build their experience and guide their career,” he said in an email.

Most recently Burberry teamed with the director Steve McQueen, who is making his advertising debut with the new Mr. Burberry fragrance.

While fashion video’s popularity is soaring now, it didn’t go down as well in the beginning. “People got bored very quickly of a woman leaping around a corn field,” noted Kathryn Ferguson, filmmaker and former curator of the Birds Eye View Film Festival’s “Fashion Loves Film” initiative. “People have really had to think about the craft of filmmaking.”

Now we “share” and we “like,” and fashion and film seem to work in tandem. “Emotionally, we are transferring ourselves onto the Internet,” Mr. Knight said.