Harvard B-School alum Vivien Wang has founded an Internet startup “Fashion Stake” that will bring crowdsourcing to emerging fashion labels.
How does it work? Site visitors can invest $50 in any of the labels featured; in return, they receive privileges like clothing credits, exclusive previews, showroom visits, and tickets to fashion shows. They will also have the ability to provide feedback on the collections. While the site is focused on helping up and coming designers, it does require that the fashion companies have some existing presence in the industry. Weng noted that the site will also offer capsule collections from prominent designers – but no names have been dropped yet.
If it catches on, I think Fashion Stake could be a revolutionary movement to change the way the fashion industry works.
First, its no secret that most fashion companies don’t have a big bottom line – as successful as a designer may be, it can take years and years for him/her simply to breakeven (think Alexander McQueen – it took him more than 7 years). Rather than finding investment groups to buy up equity in their labels, fashion designers can now elicit funding from the masses – funding that could literally make the difference between sink or swim for their labels. Many labels can’t even get past the big retailers, who often ignore smaller labels for more established houses even when the talent is undeniable. Now, these labels are given the chance to show the world what they’ve got.
Secondly, the site provides the opportunity to boost profitability for the designers by eliminating the middle man. The longstanding model of the fashion industry begins with the manufacturer/wholesaler, moves to the retailer, and finally hits the end customer. Somewhere in between, all the margin gets eaten up – it most often goes to the retailer. Fashion Stake CEO Daniel Gulati says the site will allow the designers to reap the margins by distributing directly to the customer.
"What we're basically doing is {…} cutting out the retailer altogether."
And this is truly genius. Why? Its creating a relationship between the designer and the customer – with no one in between. Through the site, the customer can support his/her favorite designers directly, and receive gratification from the designer just as directly. The site provides a stream of personal and constant dialogue between the two. And this is exactly why sites like Twitter and Facebook have proven so beneficial for businesses.
In an industry where everything is SO, so edited – designers produce a line, a group of people then decide what the retailer wants, and then of those pieces, the buyers pick and choose the ones they believe the public may want – Fashion Stake is putting the decision-making in the hands of the customer to decide ultimately for herself. For some, this may not be ideal, but for me – I love seeing and discovering new talent – so I’ll be signing up on Day 1.
How does it work? Site visitors can invest $50 in any of the labels featured; in return, they receive privileges like clothing credits, exclusive previews, showroom visits, and tickets to fashion shows. They will also have the ability to provide feedback on the collections. While the site is focused on helping up and coming designers, it does require that the fashion companies have some existing presence in the industry. Weng noted that the site will also offer capsule collections from prominent designers – but no names have been dropped yet.
If it catches on, I think Fashion Stake could be a revolutionary movement to change the way the fashion industry works.
First, its no secret that most fashion companies don’t have a big bottom line – as successful as a designer may be, it can take years and years for him/her simply to breakeven (think Alexander McQueen – it took him more than 7 years). Rather than finding investment groups to buy up equity in their labels, fashion designers can now elicit funding from the masses – funding that could literally make the difference between sink or swim for their labels. Many labels can’t even get past the big retailers, who often ignore smaller labels for more established houses even when the talent is undeniable. Now, these labels are given the chance to show the world what they’ve got.
Secondly, the site provides the opportunity to boost profitability for the designers by eliminating the middle man. The longstanding model of the fashion industry begins with the manufacturer/wholesaler, moves to the retailer, and finally hits the end customer. Somewhere in between, all the margin gets eaten up – it most often goes to the retailer. Fashion Stake CEO Daniel Gulati says the site will allow the designers to reap the margins by distributing directly to the customer.
"What we're basically doing is {…} cutting out the retailer altogether."
And this is truly genius. Why? Its creating a relationship between the designer and the customer – with no one in between. Through the site, the customer can support his/her favorite designers directly, and receive gratification from the designer just as directly. The site provides a stream of personal and constant dialogue between the two. And this is exactly why sites like Twitter and Facebook have proven so beneficial for businesses.
In an industry where everything is SO, so edited – designers produce a line, a group of people then decide what the retailer wants, and then of those pieces, the buyers pick and choose the ones they believe the public may want – Fashion Stake is putting the decision-making in the hands of the customer to decide ultimately for herself. For some, this may not be ideal, but for me – I love seeing and discovering new talent – so I’ll be signing up on Day 1.
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