Clothes Horse, a New York City startup, is a data-driven platform that helps shoppers find brands that fit them best. The app enables customers to shop for clothing across retailers with a single user profile, which is why it’s being called the “Facebook Connect for fashion.”
While at university, the founders Will Charczuk, Vik Venkatraman and Dave Whittemore first launched a bespoke clothing company before deciding to pivot into a full-blown technology startup. After pivoting, they were accepted into DreamIt Ventures’ first NYC class, which just finished its program last week.
“The past few days since demoing have been awesome,” says Whittemore. “It’s the end of one time period and the beginning of another. It’s like graduating from college. When we first pivoted, we knew it was a huge idea. We threw in our application right at deadline and when we got in, we all had to quit our day jobs. My favorite part of the program was being around all the other entrepreneurs. It’s so great to turn around and talk to somebody else at one in the morning who’s also hustling. I’m really going to miss that.”
The current Clothes Horse product for retailers recommends the best fitting clothes based on a shopper’s body size and favorite past purchases. The app asks you for all the information you’d expect- your gender, height, weight, body type, bra size and favorite brands. It then will be able to recommend sizes and fit ratings for specific fashion items based on its massive data set. As it collects more data, Clothes Horse says it’s building “The Fashion Graph.”
Clothes Horse will appear on top of a retailer’s website, and recommendations will be generated for the user based first on fit, then price, followed by style and input from the user’s social graph. Once brands like J.Crew or Gilt Groupe have Clothes Horse installed, users will be able to see which items fit them best, much like Netflix works for movies. With the yet to launch Clothes Horse mobile app, you’ll be able to take this function into the mall to see which stores around you will be the best fit.
The team is launching with some seriously big name partners (although we can’t tell you who yet) and is raising its seed round (although we can’t tell you how much yet either). Clothes Horse will monetize by selling its product as a SaaS subscription.
N.B. Whittemore explains that a “Clothes Horse” is someone who is a dapper dresser and into style, fashion and looking good. The other definition of a clothes horse is a drying rack for clothing.
Read more: The inside story of DreamIt Ventures’ first New York City accelerator.
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