Startup: Savile Row Society
Website: www.savilerowsociety.com
Founder: Lisa Dolan
Pitch: Savile Row Society is a premier men’s personal styling service and e-commerce platform.
Andrew’s Commentary:
Intelligent e-commerce sites have long tried to recommend fashions for me to purchase based on my prior purchases. While clever emails with purchase suggestions have certainly reduced my browsing time, I’m rarely accused of dressing smarter.
I’ve often thought about getting a stylist at one of the major department stores, but the process always seemed too complicated. I’m a big fan of e-commerce subscription services that have combined algorithmic suggestions with personal stylists. I’m waiting for a Warby Parker-type service for apparel, where instead of seeing what the glasses look like on my face, I can see what the clothing will look like on my body — maybe even with pieces from my existing wardrobe.
What I think will determine the winners in this niche space is the ability of a company to focus not only on making individual purchases feel personalized for me, but to use data from my prior purchases to help me build outfits instead of always purchasing individual pieces that have no connection to clothing that I already own.
Video Highlights
Mission:
To provide the most efficient and enjoyable personalized shopping experience for men.
Macro Thesis:
Our macro thesis is around professional men’s purchasing behavior and the technology evolving around retail. Professional men, who are time-starved but want to look awesome, just want shopping solved – efficient, enjoyable and personalized. Today, traditional retailers fall short with overwhelming inventory and lack of styling expertise.
With the ever-expanding on-demand economy, busy male professionals expect and deserve better curated styling. Propelled by data-driven technology, user-generated suggestions will drastically improve and scale to anyone with access to the internet. Herein lies the future of retail – democratization of personal styling via a hybrid model of virtual and real stylists to fulfill the need of every online consumer.
Market Sizing:
Our target market is busy, urban professional men who don’t want to put a lot of time or thought into shopping, but still want to look polished. The shift from self-selection shopping to a personalized curated experience with a stylist could alone disrupt the US luxury menswear and men’s accessories markets which are estimated at $60 billion and $14 billion, respectively.
There is no better time to enter and disrupt the menswear market. From 2010 to 2015, online menswear sales grew 17% annually, outpacing all e-commerce retail categories. In 2015 to 2020, IBISWorld predicts further expansion of 14% annual growth. In its projections through the end of the decade, online menswear stands to grow more than the other e-commerce categories. The high growth rate in men’s retail sales is likely due to the fact that the menswear market isn’t yet saturated.
Product or Service:
We plan to transform men’s shopping through an omni-channel personalized shopping portal. Using a mixture of proprietary and public technologies, our stylists are able to work with busy professionals anywhere, providing a seamless wardrobe-building experience via cutting-edge virtual styling and communication platforms.
Real and Vaporware:
We are expanding and in late 2016 we will launch Savil.me. Savil.me will be the first go-to e-commerce destination for men. The portal will provide a human touch to forward-thinking technology such as augmented reality fittings and algorithm-selected looks that are paired with men’s lifestyle activities: travel, dating, work, sports, etc.
Why Us:
To meet the demands of busy men who seek and expect high-quality, personalized shopping, we have built a team of seasoned professionals. Our team hails from fashion, tech, data, digital marketing, design, investing and entrepreneurship. Additionally, we work with top-notch stylists (rather than salespeople) with both fashion and corporate expertise to not only develop customer rapport but to also help SRS scale strategically.
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