Mashable Highlights Three Aussie Fashion Tech Entrepreneurs
Photo via Mashable Australia
At FTF: Conference 2015, Jodie Fox, co-founder of Shoes of Prey, provided one of the day’s highlights when she discussed how her company grew from relatively small beginnings into a global company, thanks to her ingenious business model.
Shoes of Prey allows shoppers to customize shoes, then builds them from scratch in their own factories. It’s a plan that touches upon hot-button issues in the fashion industry – like sustainability, customization and harnessing new technology – while also reaching every aspect of the supply chain. “Disruptive” is a descriptor Jodie and Shoes of Prey have earned, and one that’s brought the Australian company to consumers around the world.
And Shoes of Prey is just one startup leading the fashion tech charge from Down Under. Recently, Mashable Australia profiled Jodie, alongside two other entrepreneurs who are bringing their disruptive business models to the masses, Jessica Wilson of Stashd and Lauren Silvers of Glamazon.
Stashd is a fashion discovery app, created by the staggeringly young Jessica Wilson, who founded the startup in 2014 (she’s now only 23 years old). Inspired by “translating the process of browsing in a brick and mortar store to a smartphone,” as Mashable describes it, Jessica has amassed over 3,000 global partners in a very short amount of time, a brand roster that includes household names like Net-a-Porter and Asos. While Stashd has been funded through sales up until now, a round of investment funding is in the works for the near future.
Lauren Silvers launched Glamazon in 2014, inspired by the popularity of on-demand service apps like Uber and Seamless. Much in the same way that those companies work, Glamazon connects users with nearby beauticians who have openings in their schedules at any given time, working around the traditional route of desperately calling salons to book last-minute appointments. Today, Mashable reports that Glamazon connects 5,000 users with over 100 vetted salons in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, and plans to expand into health and fitness in the future.
These success stories – each expected to continue on their onward trajectory – can be viewed as examples of how fashion and technology will remain intertwined for the foreseeable future.
After all, as Jodie of Shoes of Prey told Mashable, “Technology can make these amazing products we put on our body like Google Glass. But it needs fashion to make it something we would actually wear.”
