Luxury fashion sales startup Reebonz to open flagship store in Sydney this month

With contributions from Albert Mai.

The new Reebonz store in George Street, Sydney. Photo: Albert Mai

Since getting millions in venture funding from Intel Capital last year, Reebonz has been busy expanding into Australia and launching its online sales Down Under.

The Singapore startup, which offers members-only private sales of branded fashion goods, has also been preparing its flagship physical store in Sydney for a public debut. Read more

IncuVest and Accel-X invests USD 1.6M in Inverted Edge, an online fashion store

Singapore-based Inverted Edge, an upcoming online fashion store, has announced today that it has raised SGD 2M (USD 1.6M) from IncuVest, Accel-X, and four other undisclosed private investors.

The Singapore government’s National Research Foundation also participated in this round through Incuvest via the Technology Incubation Scheme.

Soon to be launched, Inverted Edge finds itself in an increasingly crowded space dominated by blogshops and multi-label retailers like ASOS and Zalora. Read more

GREE Ventures makes Series A investment in Indonesia’s Berrybenka, a fashion ecommerce startup

Berrybenka.com, a fashion ecommerce startup from Indonesia, has raised a Series A investment from GREE Ventures, it announced in a press release today. According to Berrybenka’s co-founder Claudia Widjaja, the investment sum is in the seven-digit millions (USD).

The funds will be used to expand product selection, scale up marketing, and improve the startup’s logistics. In addition, Jason Lamuda, co-founder of Groupon Disdus, will join the company’s co-founders, Claudia and Yenti Elizabeth, as president director and CEO. Jason has been acting as an angel investor and advisor to the startup. Read more

Pacts with inSing.com and Zalora signal Clozette’s intent to become Asia’s premier fashion network

For a social network about fashion, Clozette isn’t exactly a looker, especially when compared to the sprightlier and hipper #OOTDX, an upstart that appears to be drawing the Instagrammer crowd.

But while my first impression may be less than positive, Clozette actually turns out to be more interesting than it lets on.

It certainly has enough cache to seal a partnership with SingTel’s lifestyle portal inSing.com, an arrangement that has given Clozette front page placement — on the portal’s dropdown menu. Clicking on that link will bring you to insing.clozette.com, an e-commerce site that sells goods from Clozette’s partners.

While I’m not sure how many percent of inSing’s purported 2 million monthly active users will actually land on Clozette, it’s a positive start. The partnership between these Singapore companies appears to be the right one too: Clozette, after all, has ambitions to be a one-stop shop for women’s fashion and beauty needs.

Sure, you might have heard it all before. It would seem that every online fashion and beauty retailer, your Zaloras, Luxolas, and Asoses, wants to be that first-stop for fashionable women.

But here’s the difference between Clozette and the rest: It isn’t a traditional e-commerce site at all. In fact, it fulfills an entirely different role in the online fashion ecosystem, that of discovery. Read more

New social network #OOTDX wants to own Asia’s online fashion space

Fashion lovers itching to create their own lookbooks now have another option to go to. #OOTDX, a fashion social network, has gone live, enabling users to upload their looks and appreciate those of others. #OOTD is a commonly used social networking hashtag that means ‘outfit of the day’.

The site is created by 24-12, the company that is also behind TinyTrunk, an ecommerce platform for merchants, and Whereco, a property listings site. #OOTDX is created by Jon Yongfook Cockle and Kelly Leong. Jon has experience scaling fashion businesses: he was the director of web for Glamour Sales, a Japanese luxury fashion ecommerce site that was funded up to Series C. Read more

ERIIN is bringing Asia Pacific designers to the rest of the world

ERIIN.com actively promotes and seeks budding artists to introduce them to the international fashion scene.

Being a struggling fashion designer is hard. A lot of work goes into producing that single piece of garment. From conceptualizing a unique design, to sourcing for the perfect fabrics, to actual production, then photographing your artwork with the right model and getting distributors to put it on their store racks. You get the point.

You’ve spent a lot of time and money by the time you’re done, all you can do is hope and pray that someone hears about your designs and that you’re suddenly featured on Fashion Week. Okay, so I’m not sure if that’s how it happens, but unless there’s a local version of Project Runway in Singapore and the region, I’m sure it’s pretty rare that you hear about Singapore designers breaking into the international market and become successful, like local fashion label alldressedup.

Cue ERIIN.com, a Singapore-based e-commerce site that is bringing Asian Pacific designers to the rest of the world. The spirited duo behind ERIIN.com, Maisha Miranda and Kate Tan, started with a bang by organizing fashion show, Street Candy, with Lenovo Singapore. It was held just five months into ERIIN.com’s  launch, showcasing fresh new fashion design labels from the region. Read more

Despite brutal competition, Singapore’s fashion industry experiences a rebirth

It's a packed house at the retail launch of PARCO next NEXT's new labels on 14th April.

Globalization has dealt local fashion labels a bad hand.

It used to be that fashion designers in Singapore could fill a niche between mass market apparel from the department stores and expensive luxury brands.

David Wang, vice president of the Textile & Fashion Federation (TaFf), lived in that era. As a local fashion pioneer in the 80′s, the runway for him to maneuver was much wider. Global brands like Topshop, Uniqlo, and H&M were not around to compete for the Singaporean’s fashion budget.

But the times changed.

“During my time, Singaporeans had pride in local brands. The good old days are gone. Now they look at price,” he says, “they’re very practical. If they look at a dress from a local designer that’s $399, they won’t support her. They’d rather go to H&M to pick up an entirely new wardrobe.”

While there’s a lot of hullabaloo these days about the power of e-commerce as a powerful, superlative, enabler for startups, David cautions that the Internet’s low barrier of entry results in more competition. Some blogshops, for example, offer cutthroat prices for their items.

In the face of such a brutal environment, PARCO next NEXT was started in 2010 to prop up the local fashion scene. It is a fashion incubator that picks promising fashion designers and puts them under an 18-month training and mentorship program to learn the ropes of being a successful fashion entrepreneur. They’re incubating the third batch. Read more

This fashion startup put a Black Eyed Peas member into Depression

What are the chances of meeting an international artist or celebrity while walking in Orchard Road, Singapore’s well-known shopping district? Almost one in a million. It is even rarer for such an artist to declare his love for an independent, not to mention, Singaporean label.

But for local fashion label Depression, that rarity became reality when Taboo (photo), member of American hip-hop group The Black-Eyed Peas, surprised everyone with a visit to its Cineleisure Orchard store while he was in Singapore to perform a DJ set at Forbidden City.

With albums sold at an estimated 65 million records worldwide, The Black-Eyed Peas are considered one of the most popular and successful hip-hop groups in the world.

Read more

Rocket Internet launches Zalora in M’sia and S’pore, on mass hiring spree in Southeast Asia

Updated: 18th April 2012

If you don’t know Rocket Internet, you should. This German startup incubator, founded by the famous Samwer Brothers, has a knack for copying business models from Silicon Valley and replicating them successfully elsewhere.

Now, they are conquering Southeast Asia.

SGE got wind from Raphael Strauch, managing director of Rocket Internet, that they have started Zalora.com, a Zappos clone, in Malaysia and Singapore. Zalora is an online fashion retailer that stocks clothing and accesories from indie brands around the region.

Featured brands include TAS Iman by Tom Abang Saufi, a well-known Malaysian fashion designer, Ladakh, an Australian label, and SABRINAGOH.

Besides an online fashion business spanning the region, a check with various online recruitment sites has revealed that Rocket Internet is also embarking on an online food delivery venture and a furniture business called Home24.sg. Raphael declined to reveal more details at the point of time.

What we do know is that the company has embarked on a massive recruitment drive in Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia, with the aim of taking Southeast Asia’s online retail market by storm, as their job ads put it.

Based on what we’ve seen, the company is in the midst of creating multiple localized e-commerce websites utilizing a common logistical and operational backbone, each focusing on different verticals. Read more

Qi Global 2011 – 13 and 14 October

For the third time running, Qi 2011 will present the audience with various speakers from different expertise areas. They will share their personal insights on how they create innovative business, social and environmental solutions and where they see future opportunities. You can view speakers list here. Read more