Fashion Just Got Even Faster // .@Betabrand

Feeds, Followers, Posts & Projects: The Foundation of Fashion's Future?

 

 

 

Every day, new design ideas from around the world, some only hours old, launch on Betabrand.com.

Part portfolio site, part crowdfunding platform, part clothing brand, the San Francisco startup feels more like Facebook than a common catalog. Betabrand.com presents customers with a nonstop fashion feed: products available for purchase today, concepts that will be crowdfundable tomorrow.

Today, that feed happens to include experimental footwear from Timberland®, designs from Project Runway stars Sethaaron Henderson and Melissa Fleis, hyper-reflective dresses from 3M, and hundreds of other products and projects from less well-known, but equally passionate, fashion fans. Who knows what’ll pop up on the site tomorrow? 

“There’s a disconnect between the fashion industry’s development process and an online consumer’s demand for nonstop new ideas,” says Betabrand founder and CEO Chris Lindland.   “By opening up the R&D process to everyone — not just professional designers — our customers can participate in product development from the start."

 Since 2013, the e-commerce site has published thousands of design concepts and launched more than 500 crowdfunding prototypes. And those numbers keep growing. 

 “Take a spin through any designer’s portfolio, and you’ll see that 90% of their ideas never get made,” Lindland says. “To us, that’s a world of projects that can find followings on our site.”

 Designers develop fans on Betabrand.com in the same way photographers cultivate followings on Instagram. San Francisco’s Tony Wloch, for example, has more than 2,700 voters queued up for his Collarless Yoga Blazer, scheduled for crowdfunding this June. Will it eclipse the crowdfunding success of Betabrand’s other work/travel hits (including Dress Pant Yoga Pants, projected to earn $20M this year alone)? Stay tuned!

For a hyper-social clothing brand that thinks in terms of feeds, followers, posts, and projects, more is better. And so is faster. See how it all works inBetabrand’s Think Tank design laboratory and on its crowdfunding page.

ABOUT BETABRAND:

San Francisco-based Betabrand is a crowdfunding clothing company that releases new designs daily. 

Notable projects include:   Dress Pant Yoga Pants,  Executive Hoodies,  Gay Jeans, Space Jackets, Paparazzi-fighting fashion, Black Sheep Sweaters, Poo Emoji Dresses, The Suitsy and many more.