In this paper part of the work of the research project ‘IntExMa’ is presented, that aims at the development of an interactive, in-store sales support system focusing on the virtual ‘try-on’ of clothing. Customers are provided with highly realistic, individualized, three-dimensional virtual counterparts, derived from a small number of body measurements. The paper describes in detail the approach followed for the required automatic generation of avatars. It is based on a sophistication of the well-known concept of parametric deformation. The solution presented here is characterized by a range of means that provide highly flexible, fine-grained adjustments of the linear transformation process leading to precisely controllable results.