Vêtir: The App For The 0.01% Of Shoppers & Their Stylists

by | Apr 8, 2024 | INTERVIEWS | 0 comments

In an era where technology is reshaping industries at an unprecedented pace, Vêtir emerges as a groundbreaking solution set to redefine luxury shopping. With a rich tapestry of experience spanning the transition from print to digital media and witnessing the seismic shifts caused by e-commerce and social commerce, the founder of Vêtir, seasoned fashion expert Kate Davidson Hudson recognises the latent potential within the fashion industry, especially the luxury segment. Addressing the fragmentation plaguing the current landscape, Vêtir aims to harmonise brick-and-mortar, e-commerce, personal shopping, and styling into a cohesive digital ecosystem.

Guided by the principles of personalisation, experience, and ease, Vêtir leverages cutting-edge AI technology to curate a hyper-personalized retail experience for its users. From shoppable videos to an AI-powered digital closet, Vêtir is pioneering innovations that promise to revolutionize wardrobe curation, styling, and management. As Vêtir makes its mark with a Paris Fashion Week debut and collaborations with industry giants like Net-a-Porter, join us in this exclusive interview to delve deeper into the vision, technology, and aspirations driving this transformative platform in the luxury shopping landscape.

Can you share more about the inspiration behind creating Vêtir and how it aims to redefine luxury shopping?

I’ve been in this industry for a long time and have seen the evolution from print to digital media, rode through the rapid disruption of traditional retail by the advent of ecommerce and social commerce; I unquestionably, feel were on the precipice of one of the most rapid technological transformations of our time, with developments in computer learning and AI.

The fashion industry, particularly on the luxury end of the spectrum, is traditionally slower to evolve than other industries and right now we have a very fragmented system where brick-and-mortar, ecommerce, social commerce, personal wardrobing, personal shoppers, and stylists all work across divergent digital channels, in multiple different micro ecosytems. We have incredible technological tools at our fingertips, yet our industry is one of the last to harness technology to create better systems to provide efficiency at scale. Transportation has gone through this personalization-at-scale evolution with the advent of Uber, television with streaming options like Netflix, and music with itunes or spotify.

Personalization- as it relates to fashion – can be achieved at scale. Vetir is the solution to achieve this at scale across the industry.

I started from a place of wanting to build something that synced with the way I wanted to shop, with the 3 guiding principles being personalization, experience, and ease. Vêtir leverages technology to create one smart ecosystem that marries all of a shopper’s consumption touchpoints into a smart platform that customizes your feed specifically to you.

In what ways does Vêtir’s tech stack and AI learning contribute to providing an exclusive and hyper-personalized retail experience?

The tech stack and AI feature works directly with the consumer, the more you use the Vêtir, the more personalized the experience will be. Our AI is continuously learning and is is a key player in the personalization of our customer experience. Everything our user touches builds on AI capabilities that will transform their consumer journey. More specifically, our AI has been in training for over a year and has become quite acute in learning to style out looks and make product or outfit selections based on current trends cross-referenced with a user’s individualized style preferences, size and weather in their current location. .

Next month, we’re unveiling a new AI feature that pulls pieces from your personal digital closet and creates outfits for you based on what you already own. It’s a big unlock for us in terms of achieving hyper-personalisation at scale.

For our brand partners who are licensing the Vêtir app to better clientele to their own customers, our technology is able to create AI-powered analytics to drive business intelligence and better serve their end consumer. The Vêtir enterprise app empowers brands to drive personalization at scale. This is working to grow client acquisition and the lifetime value of their clients. We’re seeing huge growth in both purchase frequency, average order values and UPT for our partners using the licensed version of the app. At the end of the day, brands are realizing that personalization is no longer a nice-to-have it’s mission critical, and our AI really works to transform the customer experience and create massively enhanced efficiencies for our partners.

Could you elaborate on the unique features of Vêtir, such as the patented shoppable video and access to an AI and live personal stylist interface?

Once you are on the app you are able to upload your digital closet or choose to start shopping. When you upload your personal closet it helps the technology to start personalizing your algorithm which will allow you to see products that match your personal style as well as provide outfit suggestions. This also allows you (or your stylist) to work in your virtual closet and create outfits, packing lists for trips, or add outfits to your calendar so you are planned out and pre-styled every day. The app allows for the consumer to onboard their personal stylist to help curate outfits virtually; however, if you don’t have a personal stylist our concierge team will match them with a Vêtir approved stylist to work free of charge as part of our community.

Additionally, with the shoppable video technology, stylists and brands are able to make all their video content immediately shoppabe. So it creates another point of monetization for stylists and it helps to capture the experiential element in online shopping that I think is really missing from the space at the moment.  From stylist tutorials, to shopping live runways shows, to creating gated shopping events we’re now able to funnel event-driven moments into the experience.

How do you see Vêtir contributing to the future of luxury shopping and reshaping the entire ecosystem of styling, wardrobe curation, and management?

Right now the luxury shopping experience is extremely fragmented and, with personal shoppers regulated to the physical confines of a store or showroom blueprint, with little to no visibility of the clients’ closets and no functional data on how the client consumes, a largely impersonal experience. Personalization is and will continue to be as important a differentiator in the luxury fashion space as ever. Whoever creates experience through personalization and a sense of intimacy will win in the digital space, but to do that at scale is the real challenge.

We’ve built (what a lot of people like to term) Cher’s Closet, which allows full visibility into a client’s wardrobe, empowering stylists to upstyle what a client already owns and manage their wardrobe more efficiently.

A stylist can now make product recommendations directly to one client or to their full roster of 200 clients, with one click; and, without the limitations of physical access or time zones. Vetir allows them to immediately scale their business. And, layered on top of that, our AI is always learning each clients’ shopping preferences from their stylist interactions and from the clients’ product selections, so the clients’ interface is actually getting smarter and more acute – enhancing the personalization and lifetime value proposition f the platform to the end client. To me, this is the type of experience and intimacy that will become the future of fashion luxury and technology. A personalized blend of art and science.

With Net-a-Porter confirmed as the exclusive multi-brand luxury partner, how do you envision the collaboration impacting the overall Vêtir platform?

Net-a-Porter is our exclusive multi-brand partner for this year. We have multiple mono brand partners who are also part of the platform and round out the product assortment and exclusive product edits beyond the robust and elevated assortment Net-a-porter brings to our VIC client base.

As a pioneer in digital content with over 15 years of industry experience, what challenges did you face during the 6-month beta testing, and how were they addressed?

The fascinating and challenging thing about technology is the pace at which it evolves, and staying in step with that rapid innovation is both exciting and daunting. There are too many hurdles to bore you with here, but I think the pervasive through-line with how to overcome all of them was to dig in, to study, to iterate…and iterate some more! And surround yourself with people much smarter than yourself. Which is something I did with our global team at Vetir.

With the official launch during Paris Fashion Week, what expectations do you have for Vêtir’s impact on the luxury shopping landscape?

We are working on formally launching menswear and beauty categories, and we have several exciting partnerships coming throughout the year that will, additionally, provide exclusive opportunities for our users. And, we have a couple of exciting new tech launches that will further enhance the shopping experience for our users and brands.

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