Fashion Design: Van Howe Is Going To Be Google In The Fashion World.

Fashion design: Van Howe is going to be Google in the fashion world.

The 28 year old fashion stylist created Tagwalk, the fashion search engine, which has become the most advanced fashion forecasting, research and inspiration tool in the fashion industry.

Like many great innovations, in order to solve a problem, Alexandra Van Houtte created Tagwalk, a search engine. Van. It was in 2016, when Vanhout had been a fashion stylist for 4 years.

"At that time, my job was to look for clothes all day." Vanhout, 28, described his responsibilities so much. She needs to turn over thousands of photos to create emotional boards for the next shoot. She found that the system was slow and intolerable, and there was no single search function in the existing show website.

Van howt counted Mathematics: "537 designers, 4 times a year. This is equivalent to about 35 thousand garments per year. Even if you are very smart and have the highest IQ in the world, you won't be able to remember every wave dress in a particular season.

One day, she was desperate. "When we were shooting for a celebrity, I needed to find every black dress that appeared in three fashion seasons. It was a nightmare. That's ridiculous. I searched all night on the website to find the black skirt. There is no way to get up quickly. At that time, Uber, Instagram and Deliveroo were getting stronger and stronger. I can't believe fashion is still so stupid. At this time, a friend said to me, "since that is stupid, why don't you solve it?"

Her solution is to set up a digital database to label each garment, every pair of shoes, every handbag and every belt, and then classify them. Any single item, whether black skirt or pagoda sleeve, can be found in a blink of an eye. Nowadays, most of the classification work is done automatically by AI technology. Fan Hao sent his own photographer to the show, but at the very beginning, everything was done by hand. Tagwalk has now covered all brands in fashion shows in Paris, New York, London and Milan. Many brands that fail to go to the stage will pay for their own atlas. Tagwalk has also opened up a street breeze area. Not long ago, she also launched a shopping function, linking users with electronic retailers to earn commission fees.

At the very beginning, Tagwalk was only an assistant tool for fashion assistants, and has developed into one of the most advanced trend forecasting, research and inspiration tools in the industry. "At present, I have 25 thousand registered users, averaging 3 visits per week and staying for about 15 minutes each time." Vanhout said. She studied Chinese in University and later studied at London College of Fashion, University of the Arts in London. "91% of the users are B2B and 72% are the Millennials."

Maybe the numbers don't sound too much, Vanhout immediately analyzed. "It may not seem like much, but it's better than 750 thousand" Mrs. Loti from Surrey. " She said. "Now, three out of four of the editorial content of every brand comes from the emotional boards created on our website."

"We rely on acquired crystal intelligence." "Our users are every magazine in the world, every retailer, every wholesaler and every buyer," she continued. There are also fashion majors, design directors, business leaders and marketers.

Vanhout sits on a data gold mine. The main source of her income is to provide analysis services for the brand according to the brand positioning and the color, length, pattern and style of the website. At present, the most popular keyword in the fashion industry is "green". This may be reminiscent of the latest trend of sustainable development, but the most common one is "plastic", which proves the split of the fashion trend. Purple has gone through the heat. Besides, you may be interested in a lot of maltreatment styles next season.

Nevertheless, as a young woman who owns a company of 12 employees in Paris, fan Hao Te has also been rejected by some people in the industry. "They often laugh at me, or they don't really take me seriously."

Is it due to sex discrimination or because she is too young? "I think it is because of youth, plus this is new, and I used to be just a stylist assistant." Vanhout explained. She was calm, direct and unguarded. When I met her, she squatted on the side of the road to check the mail. "They seem to be thinking," what is the girl's data, and there is no one else in the world but her. Why do she have it? "

This is also a traditional sex discrimination. "There are no men in my team." She said, "I will not bring a man in a suit to a meeting." This is still an obstacle for women to strive to build up themselves. As Vanhout pointed out, "even if Natalie Massenet (Natalie Massenet, the founder of fashion e-commerce Net-a-Porter) also has Mark Seba (Mark Sebba)." Seba served as chief executive officer of Ms. Net-a-Porter.

Massenet and fan Hao have a lot in common. After their entry, they started with small fashion assistants and worked in the media before switching to the fashion industry. Two people have received angel investment and support from the Carmen Busquets, who is known as the fashion business angel, Carmen Carmen has helped to bring about some of the most interesting cooperation in fashion in recent years.

Bbu F Kors said, "I voted for Alexandra when I was only two months old in Tagwalk. Angel investment is always risky. At my age, it is not as easy as me when I was young to take out seed money as a co founding investor. But as long as I really appreciate the founders, or the idea of subverting the life of industry and consumers, I would like to make an exception.

In recent years, investments have focused on companies that she believes will mitigate the impact of fashion on the environment. "As for Tagwalk, I expect designers to better understand the needs of customers, so that products can be adjusted, and accurate market information can reduce waste. The goal is to use Tagwalk data, all designers can better understand customer needs and improve the opportunity to enter stores directly from the show. In this way, sales circulation can be achieved as much as possible. We also hope that consumers in Asia and Latin America will be able to buy directly from the showroom, so that we can scale operations, enter the world, and develop data rich Asian markets.

Bbu F Kors also helped to introduce Vanhout to Zheng Zhigang (Adrian Cheng) and Clive Ng of hedge fund C Ventures. The Asia based investment club has created a set of investment portfolios for the millennial generation and the Z generation. "Tagwalk this little stone will trigger a large chain reaction throughout the fashion industry." Zheng Zhigang said. He is the fourth generation of heirs of a hotel and retail empire. The family industry includes Rosewood Hotels & Resorts and has a minority stake in Cavalli. "Tagwalk is changing fashion search methods, but there is still potential."

Since its launch, Tagwalk has always been free to registered users. Van howt firmly stated that it would never charge users for registration. In this way, she must make money through other channels. "I have always known that a way to make money is those brands that fail to show up and want to be exposed. They will pay for the recommendation by Tagwalk. This road is also practicable.

These brands may include accessories that are generally not going to show up, or they can not afford new brands. At present, as long as she thinks which designer is "enough" Chanel, Gucci and Saint Laurent shoulder to shoulder " You can pay for on-line promotion. The monthly fee of the new brand is 120 pounds, and the famous brand is 400 pounds per month. Some of the revenue comes from consultancy fees. Vanhout explains: "the brand will ask:" what is the performance of my brand now? What is the positioning? What are people searching for? What's wrong? What are the media watching? "We only provide data on their brands. She added, "but we will compare them with the same brand." Besides, the shopping function is also very good.

Vanhout is full of confidence in the future of Tagwalk, but she knows that someone else will soon be able to divide the cake. She was the first person to label T, but she had to cash in on her innovation quickly. Speaking of the current plan, she said: "My Asian promotion strategy must be appropriate." She also wants to cover more fashion shows, such as Copenhagen and Seoul.

She is very confident, and, comforting, she does not have the aggressive aggressive nature of many male competitors. Although some of the most powerful gangs in the fashion industry have turned to her for help in providing business guidance and analysis, she has not forgotten their experience at the bottom of the food chain nor has she forgotten her love for clothes.

"In two years, I broke up with my boyfriend and gained 56 pounds." She spoke lightly about the emotional loss of entrepreneurship. But she's a workaholic. Maybe someday, she will sell Tagwalk, but her Create Company is not for money, but simply hope that fashion is no longer so stupid. To thank her, all of us have become much more intelligent.

Translator / He Li