Fashion and New York are like bread and butter. Or, lox and bagels. The city is an undisputed global fashion capital and home to more than 200 diverse cultures and over 800 fashion companies, accounting for 6% of the city’s jobs. Fashion has an entrenched value system in this city, from the streets of Harlem to the posh storefronts of Madison Avenue.
Woven into the very threads of this global fashion capital is the NYFT Lab, a collaborative effort between major fashion retailers and fashion tech innovators, enabling iteration, validation, and acceleration of technologies, from early and growth stage companies, that will advance and enhance the industry.
The New York Fashion Tech (NYFT) Lab is an initiative by The Partnership Fund for New York City, the investment arm of the Partnership for New York City, and Springboard Enterprises. The accelerator program grooms tech companies with a strong focus on fashion and connects them with leading fashion retailers, including Bloomingdale’s, Fossil Group, Inc, Coach, and VF Corporation, who will be joining the founding members of the 2014 inaugural NYFT Lab – Alex Ani, Kate Spade and Company, Estee Lauder Companies, and Macy’s – to create the next industry-shifting technologies, spanning categories including Fit Tech and Wearables, Style Customization, and Data and Productivity.
“The class has a broader focus this year,” said Maria Gotsch, Co-Chair of NYFT Lab and President and CEO of the Partnership Fund for New York City. “Last year, we saw a lot of analytics companies. This year, the class includes Wearables, Consumer Engagement – and we also have a company that’s focused on disruptive pricing.”
“Last year (which was the program’s inaugural year), we succeeded in creating a unique program that united innovative technology solutions with key players in fashion and retail, which resulted in both Wall Street and Madison Avenue taking notice,” said Kay Koplovitz, co-chair of NYFT Lab, Board Member of Kate Spade & Company and Chairman of Springboard Enterprises. “This year, there’s a stepped-up interest in wearables. There are times when certain ideas are ripe to come to market.”
And like the fashion world itself, the NYFT Lab responds.
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE NYFT LAB’S CLASS OF 2015
42
Besides being the answer to the meaning of life, the universe and all that, according to Douglas Adams, 42 is an intuitive data analytics platform that simplifies data for retailers and gives them answers to the insights they want to see. Using the latest data mining technology on the market, 42 helps retailers identify ways to drive growth, reduce markdowns and optimize store operations. The platform consolidates, normalizes, and visualizes complex data sets, all through an intuitive, easily understandable interface.
Cloth
Cloth is the fashion app that’s built around the way people are already using their phones to get dressed – and get inspired. Cloth makes it easy to save and organize your favorite outfits, get dressed appropriately for the weather and see what others around you are wearing. Think of it as a virtual closet that doubles as the world’s best search for real-time street style.
Customer Engaged Pricing by Nyopoly
Nyopoly, Inc.’s Customer Engaged Pricing Platform (CEPP) is a brand new strategy to access more of a product’s target customers by deciding on prices after an individualized pricing conversation has taken place between a single seller and a single buyer. Not only does this bring in more pricing benefits for the customer in a market that is strongly customer-centric, but also provides an avenue for sellers to sell more by getting an accurate grasp of how customers think about their products – and what a customer feels that they’re worth. The platform collects the ‘customer-willingness-to-pay” data and feeds them to the sellers, who can then analyze the information and come out with the best prices; hence, creating an optimum pricing mechanism in the process.
inSparq
inSparq is a comprehensive, innovative solution to increase sales by connecting prospective customers to trending products, and driving referrals through the creation of brand advocates. InSparq is the only solution that enables retailers to merchandise trending products in display ads, email marketing and on-site recommendations.
The company provides a marketing toolkit to acquire customers by featuring trending products; a trending product recommendations feature that enables you to convert more shoppers; and online social tools to turn happy customers into brand advocates. The inSparq solution has, so far, been used by such companies as Coca Cola, drjays.com and American Apparel.
Liquid Assets
Welcome to the softer (and more practical) side of wearables. Think of Liquid Assets as the next step in the evolution of wearables towards innovative textiles. The Assets themselves are hydrophobic fabrics that repel liquids and stains, while maintaining the softness and breathability of natural cotton.
SKU IQ
SKU IQ believes that real-time inventory data, through integrated offline and online systems, is the first critical step to becoming a true omni-channel retailer and is an absolute requirement for retailers who want to participate in the upside of same day delivery, click and collect, and more.
Think of it as an e-commerce revamp for retailers with physical and online stores.
Use SKU IQ to sync your in-store POS inventory to your eCommerce site, thus eliminating double data entry. When something sells in-store, your website automatically adjusts – and vice versa – eliminating reconciliations and inaccurate sales. And retailers can show customers what’s actually in stock at all times. Developed by Stanford engineers, skuIQ boosts sales of products both online and in-store by creating an integrated technology that serves to ensure minimum wastage and maximum satisfaction for retailers with huge amounts of inventory.
Retail might have just gotten a little smarter.
Sundar
Sundar is redefining the apparel and design industries by creating a collaborative platform that connects creative professionals with quality materials and qualified vendors, globally. The Boston-based company is constructing a streamlined procedure for materials sourcing by offering centralized digital catalogues of curated products, providing recommendations and insights based on data and ratings by customers, and developing social networking capability to connect buyers to the currently-fragmented market of suppliers. The search capabilities are quite sophisticated, but the mission is simple: to make sourcing a seamless experience that’s easily accessible, 24/7.
Switch Embassy
Switch Embassy makes the only scrunchable, washable, connected t-shirt. They make it elegant as well.
The digital clothing and accessories are instantly customizable to the wearer’s outfit, mood, or social feed, all of which Switch Embassy accomplishes through their illuminated e-textile hardware to software platform.
Wearables might just have gotten switched up a notch or two.
