Microsoft has developed an interactive mirror for Swedish clothing brand H&M with speech and face recognition features that kicks into gear automatically as a customer walks up to it.

The mirror is programmed to take selfies if directed and interact with customers.

"For starters, you can talk to it and it'll talk back. Ask it to take a selfie, for example, and it will happily oblige, capturing your graceful pose before immortalising your beauty on the front cover of a virtual fashion magazine," Microsoft said in a blog post.

The mirror, designed for H&M's flagship store at Times Square in New York, can provide fashion advice and allow QR code scanning for discounts, offers, automated shopping lists and newsletter subscription options.

"With the interactive mirror, we want to showcase new opportunities for voice assistants and inspire how to interact with their customers in a creative, modern and fun way," said Linda Pimmeshofer, Business Developer at Microsoft.

The mirror has been created using Cloud computing platform Microsoft Azure.

"We are delighted with our collaboration with Microsoft, where we learn how fashion and technology create new ways of interacting with customers," said Daniel Kulle, President, H&M North America.