SUMMER RAYS

Ovation and Condé Nast Entertainment have announced today that the primo duo are working together on awe-inspiring fashion television series celebrating the 10th Anniversary of Fashion Fund.

Primiering this December with six, one-hour shows, the series documents the once in a lifetime adventure of 10 American-based emerging fashion designers vying for the chance to be named the 2013 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund winner. Serious note taking might even be necessary as the production open layers and travels through depths of the fashion world where only few have seen. “The Fashion Fund will captivate audiences, documenting the rise of the next generation of designers as they gain immeasurable insight from the industry’s foremost talent,” said Dawn Ostroff, President, Condé Nast Entertainment.

The series takes viewers inside legendary studio visits, a Vogue fashion photo shoot and culminates with a presentation at NYC Fashion Week and the announcement of the 2013 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund winner. "The Fashion Fund" series is an unprecedented look at a level of support, encouragement and insight that few designers will ever receive. This is the fashion industry's chance to demonstrate exactly how savvy one must be to create success for themselves in this powerful industry. It takes unthinkable effort, undeniable skill and impeccable business acumen to turn a dream into a successful business. Hopefully the series also demonstrates to importance of the technological innovations currently expanding and pushing the industry forward.

The top award carries an incredible $300,000 grant and a one-year mentorship in areas such as business planning, sourcing, production, exporting, etc. from a team of top industry professionals. The CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund selection committee is comprised of iconic names from Anna Wintour and Diane von Furstenberg to top-level executives such as Ken Downing of Neiman Marcus, Andrew Rosen of Theory, Jenna Lyons of J.Crew, and more.

Sync those DVRs, start planning who's couch you're watching from and see you all on Ovation in December.

  xx!

Who: Mobile reCommerce fashion app, Poshmark - a fun and simple way to shop the closets of women across the U.S and sell your fashionable duds straight from your iPhone & iPad

What: POSHFEST 2013 - Poshmark's first-ever fashion festival packed with interactive panels, collaborative workshops, an impressive speaker roster and ends with a fab Posh Party 

Where: Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas

When: October 19th-20th, 2013

Why: To celebrate fashion, build community and inspire that burning entrepreneurial spirt

Hurry and get on Poshmark to get your invitation! 

Apparel drives US retail e-commerce. Check out these numbers.

$186.2 billion U.S. online commerce market

$54.2 billion from apparel alone

ModCloth - $100 million in sales 

Fab.com - $120 million in sales 

Beyond the Rack - $200 million in sales 

Rue La La - $400 million in sales 

Gilt - $600+ million in sales 

Fancy - $100,000/day in sales

Damn, talk about Monday motivation. When are you jumping into fashion tech?

Touch What You Want. Product discovery at it's finest. CINEMATIQUE launches touch enabled, shoppable videos through their brand spanking new MTEVideo platform and is strategically establishing their footing with the fashion industry. The founders of Cinematique, Randy Ross, Kyle Heller and Chayse Irvin have identified the fashion industry as the first vertical to engage with because of its trendsetting consumers, seasonality and already existing product rich videos. Big brand names such as Scotch & Soda, Honor, Co-Collections, Maiyet, BLK BMN and Suzanne Rae have demonstrated their early adopting disposition and have already created partnerships with Cinematique. 

Check out the Crossing video campaign for swimwear brand, We Are Handsome (above) and play around with the experience. 

While the video is playing, touch or click on the products that catch your eye and then touch the Cinematique logo on the far bottom right to open up your personal boutique. Now this is where the user journey gets impressive. You can thumb through high-res photos of the products you admired, read product details, share, and even jump directly to the brand's website to purchase. Yes!

From a marketing perspective, you know we have to go there, the MTEVideo platform's analytics and SEO capabilities are coming in hot. Through this uncharted data, marketers will be able to better understand how consumers interact and benefit from videos and also allow brands to interact directly with those consumers who have expressed interest in their products.

Co-Founder and renowned cinematographer Chayse Irvin paints the opportunity very well. "Imagine that 20,000 people have a touched on a dress by Honor, a NYC-based luxury fashion brand. Honor can instantly send those 20,000 people a discount. They have already expressed interest, and the incentive comes to them through the very video that sparked their interest. It both strengthens the brand-to-consumer relationship while at the same time extending the life of the video."

The value and opportunity that the MTEVideo platform creates for all industries really is limitless. Doors have opened up to an entirely new realm of content creation, measurement and outreach that will make all brands eager to hop on board. 

What do you think? Would you like to shop directly from the videos you watch?

Like what you saw, join the revolution and follow Cinematique on Facebook and Twitter

Follow Summer Rays on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & Pinterest

Read more about Cinematique on TechCrunch & Exec Digital

Stay tuned for more fashion + tech news!

xx!

Ruchika Kumar's love affair with the idea of curated local fashion was born while living in NYC, but it wasn't until a move to San Francisco that propelled the idea into a business that's refashioning the local shopping experience. 

Boutiika is amongst a new group of influential trend setters, passionately transforming the fashion industry utilizing technology to power innovation. Over the last year, Boutiika has become a boutique discovery platform helping to uncover local gems and grow in store traffic in San Francisco, Austin, Portland and Seattle. 

Now taking it a step further, Boutiika is offering services that devoted shoppers never thought were possible. DASH, Boutiika's same-day delivery service, allows you to purchase items online and have them delivered to you the very same day. Dangerous, we know. Currently being perfected in San Francisco, Ruchika confirms we can expect to see DASH in other cities in the near future. "It's nice to start in a city that you're very close to and where you understand the economics very well to perfect the model and then take it to other places." 

First and foremost, Boutiika's objective is to help drive discovery and foot traffic to the physical store. With 90% of transactions still happening in-store and only 10% through e-commerce, Boutiika is using the internet to reinvent ways to capture the majority. Ruchika can't imagine a world where people aren't interested in shopping. "People love to physically go shopping and they appreciate tools that that help plan the journey, make shopping efficient." 

With Boutiika, this sort of shopping experience is possible. There's a world of fashion out there beyond the online space waiting to get discovered. You can thumb through map views to uncover new shops and most impressively, flip through carousels of real-time inventory allowing you to find the exact boutique that carries the leather skinnies you've been dying for. 

Boutiika is creating value for boutiques by providing a space for them to show off their name and their inventory in front of potential customers that don't yet necessarily know them. Boutiika helps to encourage interaction between boutiques and consumers by hosting boutique crawls, trunk shows and industry events that drive further foot traffic and revenue, and in turn stimulates excitement around the Boutiika brand. "We like to have a presence because we're about bridging the online and in store experience.  It's collaborative, it's community driven. The power is in coming together and that's when everyone gets the most value."

With plans full steam ahead to expand into new markets, you can expect to see Boutiika in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. "We are constantly updating our product and testing innovative ways to engage both retailers and customers in this dynamic and new marketplace." Boutiika just released their new UI/UX tailored by analytics and customer behavior where the product is discovered first and the boutique second. With an average of over 50 products per boutique, it appears that the boutiques are quite excited about Boutiika's support. Ruchika gave us a teaser letting us know favoriting and following will soon be available on the platform too. 

So what advice does Ruchika have for aspiring entrepreneurs trying to break into the fashion industry? "Be prepared for the long haul. Be prepared for the time it takes to really nurture your idea and get it off the ground." 

So, take Boutiika and DASH on a test run and see what's hanging on the racks in your city and let us know what you think! 

Follow Boutiika on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest

Follow Summer Rays on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & Pinterest

Stay tuned for more news on fashion + tech!

xx!

WILDFOX COUTURE Sample Sale today in downtown LA at Cooper Design Space til 2:00pm. If you snag something babe'in I wanna see! Send pics!!

860 S. Los Angeles St. #322

Los Angeles, CA 90014

  xx!

"We're looking forward to expanding our partnership with FT Accelerator and excited about the new additions to our product line. With this funding round, Combat Gent will remain focused on staying true to its design ethic and customer service values while creating new partnerships and scaling the business."

Is it hot in here? Combat Gent is an online retailer gets men in suits at a fraction of the cost by eliminating the middle man in the retail cycle. Yes, please! The $1.84 million will be used for brand development to expand the product line and to build out the Combat Gent team. Italian shirts will be the newest offering from the online men's shop, globalizing the inventory for the Combat Gent customer. Why we care? Combat Gent is part of a recent trend of male-focused e-commerce fashion startups that simplify the process of shopping for men. We swoon over well dressed men and men in fashion tech.

  For more fashion tech juice, follow Summer Rays on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram

London's Tech City News is looking for a new batch of tech startups to participate in their clever Elevator Pitch Series. What the series is, is an opportunity for founders to pitch their startup in 30 seconds while falling 30 floors at London's impressive Heron Tower. Hope you're not afraid of heights.

Since it's launch in January, the first 13 startups have already raised  an impressive $15M in funding.

Take a look at this elevator pitch by Emma Watkison, founder of fashion startup, Silkfred - a luxury retail platform for emerging designers and independent brands that gets products to market and establishes sales channels online and offline. 

So if you think you know your elevator pitch, Tech City News is bringing on 12 news startups. Applications close July 2nd. Good luck and hold onto your stomachs!

Summer Rays talks to Jill Sherman, CEO & Co-Founder of fashion startup, Modalyst to discuss how Modalyst is leveraging technology to empower emerging accessory designers and boutiques....and well, turning fashionistas into Modalystas.

  "I’m just very fortunate for fashion tech to become so important right now and for us to be able to leverage the internet in a way that helps designers and boutique buyers around the world."

Modalyst, an online wholesale B2B marketplace, is changing the buying game by connecting designers and boutiques through collective buys to test new brands with less restrictive minimums. 

With over 11 years experience working within luxury fashion with Prada, Harvey Nichols and Italian Vogue, Modalyst was born from an acute understanding of retail and editorial environments - and a glaring gap in the marketplace. "I took a long hard look at my career to see what I had done and where I could benefit the industry in some way."

Cut from the same cloth as brilliant fashion tech entrepreneurs like Claire Mazur of Of A Kind and Erica Bell of Hukkster, Jill and her Co-Founder Alain Miguel, both MIT graduates, have created a business model everyone is gravitating towards.

  Recently nominated for Best Fashion Startup of the Year, Modalyst has remarkably spent zero dollars on advertising - it's all been word of mouth. Jill believes the secret to it all is "satisfying a need in the market amongst both the designers and boutiques in a way that allows people to share the word." 

So how does Modalyst get buyers to the site? Short lead times, low minimums and an internal affiliate market that offers incentives for both sides. Since January, over 700 designers have asked to be on the platform from over 114 countries, taking an immediate global stance.

"We're a discovery platform representing a more obvious and seamless buying experience for one to buy faster and closer to the trends." "What we do is expose. We're an open marketplace that allows boutiques to manage their competitive edge and pull together their purchasing power in a way that couldn't happen without technology." Modalyst is creating a way to transform the wholesale model into a continuous buying solution throughout the entire year. "We're about better inventory management and efficiencies within this - this is just one part of it, and you can’t do that without technology."

      Modalyst is partnering with another digital player, Boutiika - a complimentary platform servicing the store and helping to find inventory for the customer. Both really are beautiful infrastructures enabling discovery and driving traffic to the stores. Keep your eye out for a few exciting events they're hosting together next month in San Francisco.

Jill chats candidly how Modalyst is outlined closely to the Lean Startup model. As you all know, I too am a vocal advocate of the Lean methodologies and a recent mentor at a LSM Workshop, so it was pretty exciting to hear yet another Lean success story. When asked what advice she'd give herself if she started over tomorrow, she replied "when developing our MVP, we could have been a little bit more minimal...tested and planned a little better to see how we could address certain issues earlier." 

Extremely humble, Jill ends by telling us "I think we're only as good as our designers. We make a point to select really high quality designers who are producing awesome goods."

  We're leaving you all with this teaser from Jill. Expect to see new features rolling out in a few months that no one else is doing and that leverages technology even more. 

  Follow Modalyst on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & Pinterest

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Stay tuned for more updates on fashion + tech.

xx!