"The most exciting thing is the product catalog," said Joanne Hackett, director of business development for Bodymetrics, which is based in London. "You'll be able to see what jeans here at Bloomingdales fit you perfectly."

And when it's all done, the data can be transferred to a Bodymetrics iPhone app for the customer to take away.

The use of Xbox Kinect units is a first for Bodymetrics.

"We've been operating in Selfridges in London for quite a few years," said Suran Goonatilake, chairman and co-founder of Bodymetrics. "That was using a different technology, a laser-based technology, for body measurement. But the problem in using laser-based technology is, these are very expensive, so it wasn't possible to scale, it wasn't possible to expand to many stores overseas."

The Kinect, which was introduced in late 2010, carries a much lower price than the earlier laser systems, and Microsoft's developer-friendly SDK (software development kit) makes it easy to integrate in applications like Bodymetrics' scanner. Bodymetrics expects the lower price to allow its pods to spread to more locations.