Dressr Blog

Fashion as Art

2007-04-10T11:09:00.000-07:00

Virginia Postrel has an article in this month's Atlantic about fashion exhibits at art museums, and the tension that creates. (Is fashion really art? Does it belong in a museum?) Personally, I think in 300 years all the art from this era will be our consumer products, not our "high art." There's a great quote from Valerie Steele, the director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology. “Fashion is really seen as the bastard child of capitalism and female vanity.”

Here's an idea: referrals

2007-04-03T23:01:00.000-07:00

SXSW had more than just good techie panels and fun parties -- I was surprised to stumble across a thought provoking idea for online clothing retailers in one of the panels. Amelia G, of blueblood.net, asked the question "why don't clothing retailers refer people to each other's sites?" Amelia is in the adult content business, and there, if a customer does not buy from you they are referred to a competitor. "A competitor? Why?" I hear you say. Because the competitor will pay you a referral fee of around $15, and it's better to make $15 off of someone than nothing.

What does this have to do with Dressr? Part of what I think about is how Dressr, the web, and various technologies will change the retail clothing business. And this was a great insight into something that it makes sense to do -- but retailers are stuck in "business as usual" trains of thought and aren't there yet. (I'll point out they've been doing this offline for years. The next time you're in a mall, notice how 2 or 3 stores of a similar type will cluster together to draw customers from each other.)

Sharing customers works in the real world. No one buys all of their clothes from just one store. It could work in the online world, too. If the incentive was high enough, retailers would send people to the "right" place. As Amelia said "if I buy an interesting T-shirt from one place, why wouldn't I be interested in buying a different T-shirt from another site?"

"All early software projects suck in some ways"

2007-03-26T10:27:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of Dharmesh Shah's On Startups blog, and a recent post reminded me so much of where I am with Dressr:

One of the hardest things to do when getting a new project off the ground is finding that early mass of users to actually try it and tell you why it sucks. No doubt it sucks, because all early software projects suck in some ways, you need to know why it sucks.

This is very reassuring to me. This is why I launched Dressr for SXSW -- before it was really ready. And this is where I am now -- walking the fine line between "is it enough?" and "getting the word out as much as possible." Right now I know Dressr sucks -- my post SXSW traffic has a couple of people signing up but very few using it -- so the next thing to figure out is "why it sucks."

I figure I'm going to fix some of the issues that have become obvious from the post-SXSW usage trends (design, "getting" it, usability), and then go for round 2 of this type of user/feedback/fix loop.

Man this is hard...

2007-03-19T19:12:00.000-07:00

Launching a project like Dressr "into the wild" is a nervewracking experience. It's a great way to work on your product -- by watching what people do when they visit the site, you can see what you need to do next -- but at the same time it's very personal. In my regular Google searches on Dressr, I ran across this reference and immediately honed in on this reference "it looks like shit..."!!!! Luckily for me, my husband/partner/co-developer was around to talk me off the ledge and went to look for himself. Since his ego is slightly less wrapped up in Dressr, he pointed out that it was actually a recommendation of Dressr as exactly what the other commenter was asking for. Yep, upon further examination, he was right. Whew.

And I know Dressr looks... less than spiffy. I've been working with web designer Lynn Wallenstein to get that fixed. Guess I need to move the redesign up the priority list. Isn't it nice to have suggestions from nice anonymous people online? :)

Sigh. This post was a bit overly emotional instead of my usual logical geek self.

Grow your own dress...

2007-03-15T19:45:00.000-07:00

From the University of Western Australia comes a project where microbal scum, grown on the top of a vat of wine, has been turned into a dress. I wouldn't say it is attractive, but it definitely is an interesting idea. Can you see us, 50 years from now, growing our own dresses in vats in our bathrooms...

Frock Shock

2007-03-14T22:09:00.000-07:00

I was introduced to this wonderful term -- Frock Shock -- by the wacky and fun Catherine Halley of Domino/Scrappy Girl Decorates during SXSW. (Yes, arguably I should have been learning all sorts of useful technical stuff instead of talking thrift shopping and decorating... Conferences where you can do both, however, are few and far between.)

Frock Shock is what you feel when you stare into your closet before work and have no idea what to wear.... Isn't it a great term? Won't it be cool when you can feel no frock shock because all of your fabulous outfits are cataloged and ready for the wearing on Dressr?

Dressr is up!!

2007-03-09T19:47:00.000-08:00

This afternoon I moved the Dressr alpha site to www.dressr.com. Are we ready for primetime? Who knows, but I wanted to make it available instead of tweaking it until it was "perfect."

Dressr lets you:

Add items to your virtual closet using our easy bookmarklet tool or by simply uploading digital pictures.
Create and save outfits by quickly dragging and dropping items onto an Outfit Palette.
See all of your outfits, or anyone else's, containing a particular item of clothing.
Search through just your closet, or everyone's closets, for particular items or outfits.
Tag items and outfits to make it easier to find things that will go together.
And best of all, share your closet with your friends and others, to get suggestions and ideas on outfits.

Check it out and tell me what you think!

Seen on the Street -- blogstyle

2006-05-01T08:27:00.000-07:00

I love how some of the fashion bloggers have their own version of the "seen on the street" features newspapers and magazines do. These features are always my favorite -- what are real people wearing and how are they wearing it -- and the blog version does not fail to disappoint.

Two I've noticed recently are Style Bubble's BubbleCam and the Tribunal of Good Taste's Native Street Style.

One interesting thing about these two are the diversity of people and place. Bubble's in Hong Kong, a humongous Anglo-Asian metropolis, but Tribunal's shots are from Iowa City -- a college town in the Midwest.

The other interesting thing is that these shots are taken less than a week apart on opposite sides of the world, yet both feature a fabulous coat. Wonder why 2 fashion bloggers on different sides of the world would both zero in on a coat wearing passer-by to feature on their blogs?

Hi-Low Fashion Watch

2006-04-23T14:12:00.000-07:00

W Magazine is reporting that Vera Wang is in talks with Kohl's and Slave to Target has the scoop on the next designer to grace Target's Go International Campaign -- Tara Jarmon.

Prada Skirts = Flowers

2006-04-20T15:14:00.000-07:00

Wow. Skirts as flowers as art.

Diana Eng's Blog

2006-04-19T11:18:00.000-07:00

For anyone who's interested in the collision between fashion and technology, Diana Eng is one to watch. Diana was the "geek" contestent on Project Runway, season 2, probably most famous for her inflatable dress.

She's got a show this weekend at the Maker Faire in San Mateo.

For those of you, like me, not in the Bay Area, I recommend keeping tabs on Diana via her blog, Popular Transit.

Presentation at Austin on Rails

2006-04-12T13:32:00.000-07:00

I presented Dressr to my local Rails (some free software I'm using) user group last night. As I told the audience "I suspect I'm the only one here who reads both Wired and Vogue," so it was an interesting experience. Mainly, though, it was fun. Dressr is beginning to look like a real product -- I actually demoed building what I was wearing that night! I stuck around for a beer afterwards, and one of the organizers told me he'd try to hook me up with some of his female designer coworkers. I sure hope so -- I'm a good software developer, and I love clothes, but I am in desperate need of help making Dressr look spiffy.

Someone was taking pictures, so when they go up on Flickr I'll post!

Label Fixation

2006-04-12T13:21:00.000-07:00

Susie Bubble's Style Bubble blog has some interesting commentary on the Hong Kong label fixation. It turns out that Monday, a Hong Kong lifestyle magazine, publishes brand specific supplements detailing every single item of a certain brand that you could wear. According to Susie, they do this without any advertising money from the brand itself (surely this couldn't be right?!?).

Susie says:
It's things like this that make me really cringe about Hong Kong fashion, which unfortunately largely revolves around how many labels you can carry around. Who cares about the design aesthetic or the beauty of a garment when you could be wearing a Burberry Blue Label nylon baugette with a Gucci wallet inside, a Vivienne Westwood phonechain on the latest Samsung, a Louis Vuitton makeup case, not forgetting the Burberry London glasses case as well!

Crazy. Why would you value your style based on what brand you wear? Why spend all the money just for a label, instead of for something that makes you look good?

Interview with CEO of BlueFly (on Papier Doll)

2006-04-06T18:24:00.000-07:00

Over at Papier Doll there is an interview with Melissa Payner, CEO of BlueFly. BlueFly, if you don't know already, is the best sites for buying designer clothes at a discount -- 40% and up. A couple highlights from the interview:

As legend has it, there's a certain look you need to have when working at Vogue, does the same ring true for Bluefly?
No, not at all... everyone at Bluefly has their own distinctive style.

Do you think fashion sites have benefited from blogging – like Bluefly’s Flypaper?
Frankly, I'm not familiar with many retailers specifically that have blogs. Flypaper is a great way for our customers to be part of a like-minded community interested in the same things. Flypaper is actually much more than a blog – it offers trend predictions, celebrity style, fashion advice as well as being a great forum for readers and contributors to sound off.

We believe that shopping is largely emotional -driven and that any variety of emotions can trigger the shopping gene.

Bluefly obviously "gets it" -- people want their own look, on their own terms, at a good price. Community matters. Emotions matter.

"The Star Treatment"

2006-04-02T19:44:00.000-07:00

Vogue this month has an article on personal stylists -- it turns out they're the new personal publicists. And unlike publicists, stylists are getting the limelight. Rachel Zoe, the stylist profiled in the article, styles Nicole Richie and is regularly featured on VH1. With this kind of exposure, stylists are trickling down to the indulgent mere-mortal level. I predict careers as stylists will take off; everyone will want to be one (if they don't already) even if everyone doesn't hire one -- the only question is "how do you become one?"

There's a couple of neat tricks to be picked up from the article:

identify your body type era -- 50s; 70s; etc.

layout outfits and polariod them (how very analog...)

cork platforms are more comfortable than heels

wide folds before tucking jeans into your boots.

Wouldn't it be cool if you could style outfits for yourself and your friends online?

New DIY Fashion Show: Stylelicious

2006-03-30T09:19:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of do-it-yourself fashion, I wanted to highlight the new show Stylelicious on the DIY network. It features Austin hometown fashion favorites, the Austin Craft Mafia (including friend Susann Keohane of All Dressed Up and Shy), demonstrating how to make their cutting edge crafty wearables. The show premieres 1:30 PM April 6th on the DIY network. I can't wait to see it!