See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Standing Ovation, a startup that operates online fashion community XZ (pronounced as ‘closet’), has fundraised 140 million yen (about $1.2 million) in July from Gumi Ventures, DBJ Capital, iStyle Capital, and several angel investors. This is the second investment following the initial seed investment from Skyland Ventures. Boasting over 55,000 outfit patterns with 270,000 clothing items Many women are complaining that they have no clothing to go in to wear before their closets. But the true problem lies elsewhere. They actually do have plenty of clothes, but they just don’t know how to coordinate what they have. Users of this app register their closets on XZ and just like that, one can find ideas for coordinating one’s own clothing and that is XZ’s biggest allure. These online closets are growing fast, they now have 270,000 registered closets on the app. Also, they have over 55,000 clothing coordination ideas. Some of the users register more than 600 items in their online closets and create over 400 arrangements. One only has to register the items and obtain coordination ideas for the clothing one would never have thought of. Users enjoy it so they register more…
Tokyo-based Standing Ovation, a startup that operates online fashion community XZ (pronounced as ‘closet’), has fundraised 140 million yen (about $1.2 million) in July from Gumi Ventures, DBJ Capital, iStyle Capital, and several angel investors. This is the second investment following the initial seed investment from Skyland Ventures.
Boasting over 55,000 outfit patterns with 270,000 clothing items
Many women are complaining that they have no clothing to go in to wear before their closets. But the true problem lies elsewhere. They actually do have plenty of clothes, but they just don’t know how to coordinate what they have.
Users of this app register their closets on XZ and just like that, one can find ideas for coordinating one’s own clothing and that is XZ’s biggest allure. These online closets are growing fast, they now have 270,000 registered closets on the app. Also, they have over 55,000 clothing coordination ideas. Some of the users register more than 600 items in their online closets and create over 400 arrangements.
One only has to register the items and obtain coordination ideas for the clothing one would never have thought of. Users enjoy it so they register more items. The company plans to add a variety of functions to enhance its circulation in the future.
Large-scale upgrades and enhanced content
In order to offer experiments for promoting discovery of new clothing coordination ideas to more users, they are going to add a Q&A section. Also, they will find content with clothing coordination ideas that are buried deep within the system. After the upgrades, they will have 100 clothing coordination ideas that can be provided per registered and posted items.
Furthermore, in September, they are going to release a web version that allows one to browse it on smartphones and PC. By highlighting the content as an allure for people, they create a user flow going from ‘Learning on the web, then trying it on the app’; it is said that they are going to support users with poor clothing coordination skills by providing them with very interesting clothing coordination content, coordination theories and color science information.
As part of their business model, they will enhance their omni-channel cooperation with apparel brand shops. They will go on to provide a B2B solution which enables the ultimate services in shops while developing a virtual system enabling customers to try on new clothes.
Until now, fashion has always been something pushed to users by the media. With the online close and XZ’s growth every day, fashion has taken on a new way of existing through a bottom-up system that begins from interaction among the online closets of individual users.
Translated by Chieko Frost via Mother First Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy
XZ (pronounced “closet”) is an online fashion community launched back in September 2014, aiming to help young women enjoy wearing more variety of clothes. In this space, we have recently seen launches of some similar services, such as Primode giving users chat-based outfit recommendations as well as subscription-based fashion item rental service AirCloset. But XZ is distinguished for giving users opportunities to mix and match new items with the clothes they already have in their closet. Almost a half of their users are females aged from 18 to 26. More than 130,000 fashion items and 22,000 outfit patterns have been uploaded from users to date, increasing by 1,000 new items every day. While women have many clothes in their closet, they are selective about what to wear from among them because they don’t want colleagues to think that they wear the same clothes all times. The XZ platform addresses these worries in their daily lives, helping them find the best outfit using the clothes already owned – leveraging wisdoms of crowds via social media, rather than encouraging them to buy a new one. Yoshihiro Ogita, CEO of the platform’s operating company Standing Ovation, explained: In view of consumer behaviors in…
XZ (pronounced “closet”) is an online fashion community launched back in September 2014, aiming to help young women enjoy wearing more variety of clothes. In this space, we have recently seen launches of some similar services, such as Primode giving users chat-based outfit recommendations as well as subscription-based fashion item rental service AirCloset. But XZ is distinguished for giving users opportunities to mix and match new items with the clothes they already have in their closet.
Almost a half of their users are females aged from 18 to 26. More than 130,000 fashion items and 22,000 outfit patterns have been uploaded from users to date, increasing by 1,000 new items every day. While women have many clothes in their closet, they are selective about what to wear from among them because they don’t want colleagues to think that they wear the same clothes all times.
The XZ platform addresses these worries in their daily lives, helping them find the best outfit using the clothes already owned – leveraging wisdoms of crowds via social media, rather than encouraging them to buy a new one.
Yoshihiro Ogita, CEO of the platform’s operating company Standing Ovation, explained:
In view of consumer behaviors in fashion, most conventional services are centered on what users do prior to new purchases or how users should handle clothes no longer used. While e-commerce sites and fashion-focused social networks based on snapshot sharing fulfill the former role, peer-to-peer marketplaces or flea market apps are utilized for the latter purpose. But we help users find how to enjoy themselves more with the clothes they have.
Making good outfits even with inexpensive fashion items
XZ’s calendar function
Every user uploads about 30 fashion items to the XZ platform on average, which is extremely higher than was expected by the Standing Ovation team, which foresaw an average of 10 items at most. According to Ogita, 11% of these items are used for creating new outfits on the platform, where users are some 10 times more active than most user-generated content sharing platforms; this is because users post articles based on their belongings.
Ogita was surprised to see a variety of fashion items ranging from fast-fashion to high-end labels have been uploaded on the platform. Furthermore, many items used for creating outfits are from fast-fashion labels. Beyond assumptions that many people don’t want to say they have only fast-fashion items, users are enjoying highlighting their skills and sensibilities that allow them to create cute outfits using inexpensive items.
They recently launched the calendar function, enabling users to remind which outfit they have chosen each working day. This will encourage users to register more fashion items on the platform while contributing to an improved user retention rate. Furthermore, the lab team is developing a new feature that notifies users when their items are used to create new outfits, or helping a user find other users that she can share her taste with. Looking ahead, the platform will be enhanced to let like-minded users connect with each others based on attributes like preferable brands or age brackets.
Ogita added:
We have received much feedback from users. Based on that, we will roll out a new feature in April, to help users find the best outfit from their items for a first date with someone.
Monetization strategies
Multiple outfits created with the same fashion item.
Although initially a C2C (consumer-to-consumer) marketplace launch was planned, the team is focused on community-building reflecting user feedback now. The uploaded items are what users prefer to keep wearing and not intended for sale to someone else.
An analogy comes to mind: when the social shopping was all the fuss, typical social
network services failed miserably in making money upon integration with e-commerce platforms. This happened as user mindsets on social network platforms differ from those on e-commerce platforms. Users visit a social network service to communicate with friends, a completely different mindset when buying something. The same holds for XZ.
The Standing Ovation team will allow fashion brands to create their own closet on the platform to monetize. By letting brands publish their new items through an own closet to users while ascertaining how their items are utilized for creating outfits by users. As traffic further increases, they plan to establish an advertising business on the platform too.
This will provide substantial benefit to users because it facilitates new item purchases
while considering outfits with what they already have in their closet. The company has several premium functions, allowing users to sort out items in order of clothing pattern or seek professional advice for better outfits.
Huge potential
XZ users start using the platform because they want to manage their fashion items. Once started, they enjoy discovering new outfits and ideas there. To help more people easily understand this experience, the company offers an additional menu that lets users ask a warehousing company to take and upload pictures of their fashion items.
Ogita is spending much effort to enhance the potential and the convenience of the XZ platform.
If a partnership with a job search portal in the fashion industry is established, employers can check the fashion sense of potential employees by seeing what kind of outfits or clothes they have in their closet, to realize a better matchmaking. If partnered with a leading fashion magazine company, they can help find fashionable girls using XZ as a model audition platform, even in rural areas.
Moreover, if apparel brands can integrate their customer database or purchase history with the XZ platform, they can better serve customers beyond purchases since they can understand how customers use these items by discerning user behaviors on the platform.
Ogita concluded:
Our service is highly connected to users, it is totally about what they have. Not only as a reference, they can also style themselves based on it the next day or perhaps the same day as well. We hope to become a standard for daily-use fashion apps.
Translated by Taijiro Takeda Edited by Masaru Ikeda Proofread by “Tex” Pomeroy
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup Standing Ovation launched a fashion item management app called XZ (pronounced as Closet) earlier this week. XZ helps users mix and match clothing items in a user’s wardrobe. A survey of 300 women from 18 to 34 living in Tokyo shows that while they have, on average, fashion items worth 345,000 yen ($3,200), they typically only wear 30% of these items while the rest (about 80 items) have never been worn and sit unused in a closet. It is unfortunate that so many pieces of clothing go unworn. The XZ team says this happens because many women lack the skill to mix and match items: We want to help women discover items in their closets and propose new mix and match outfits. By sharing what users have in their closets, the app allows a user to see how other users coordinate their outfits and consider how to arrange an outfit based on what other users have done. How does XZ differ from other outfit coordination services like iQon and Wear? CEO Yoshihiro Ogita explained: Services like Wear and iQon are a reference tool that helps users polish their fashion skills, plus they…
Tokyo-based startup Standing Ovation launched a fashion item management app called XZ (pronounced as Closet) earlier this week. XZ helps users mix and match clothing items in a user’s wardrobe.
A survey of 300 women from 18 to 34 living in Tokyo shows that while they have, on average, fashion items worth 345,000 yen ($3,200), they typically only wear 30% of these items while the rest (about 80 items) have never been worn and sit unused in a closet.
It is unfortunate that so many pieces of clothing go unworn. The XZ team says this happens because many women lack the skill to mix and match items:
We want to help women discover items in their closets and propose new mix and match outfits.
By sharing what users have in their closets, the app allows a user to see how other users coordinate their outfits and consider how to arrange an outfit based on what other users have done. How does XZ differ from other outfit coordination services like iQon and Wear?
CEO Yoshihiro Ogita explained:
Services like Wear and iQon are a reference tool that helps users polish their fashion skills, plus they include a catalog function. However, to absorb that knowledge completely, a user only uses them as a reference but must consider a suitable outfit by themselves. XZ offers advice based on what a user has in their closet, so they can start adopting proposed outfits as soon as the next day.
The XZ team is establishing a community addressing the fashion mix and match problem as well as acquiring influential stylists and fashion bloggers. Once the community is established it will create new fashionistas and cater to a user’s self-expression.
The company plans to develop a marketplace where users will be able to sell and buy and rent their fashion items. The team also plans to launch a B2C business where fashion brands can propose their newly-shipped items to users by considering what other items these users have in their wardrobe.
The company aims to attain five million downloads from Japan as well as 25 million downloads from the rest of the world in three years, as well as reach over 100 million users worldwide within five years.
The XZ service is available for iOS and Android platforms.
XZ 
Yukari Mitsuhashi
