Men’s fashion is a growing industry, with traditional retailers and startups alike offering more diverse product and delivering that product in new ways. The latest startup to join the new herd of up-and-comers catering to men and their sartorial needs is École, which launches today out of New York.
First and foremost, École is a shopping experience that helps men make purchasing decisions when buying clothing.
The idea is that men want a quick and painless shopping experience and some men want additional feedback on the outfits they like, to ensure that everything matches and that those pants will go with those shoes, etc. In fact, just last night I got into a long discussion with a friend about whether or not he was wearing the right jeans to go with hightop sneakers (he wasn’t), so anecdotally, the demand for something like this is there.
École takes items from one of its six fashion brand partners and puts them into a UI that forms complete “looks” based on those brands. Users can click into any look and mix and match from other pieces in the collection on a granular level, swapping out the jacket and the jeans, or just switching out the shirt. École tells the user with every swipe whether or not that complete look is “École recommended” so that guys still have control over their style without getting overzealous.
École is launching with six men’s fashion brands as partners, from which they buy a few key pieces in a collection and stock up on two or three times more inventory than a traditional retailer. The idea here is that men don’t care as much about seasonality as they do about having well-made, long-lasting basics they can take with them from season to season. Some of the pieces sold in École will be made exclusively for the École store by various brand partners.
This helps keep the breadth of options low, simplifying the process of making a purchasing decision down to pieces that École is confident will look great together.
École is thus far boostrapped, and you can learn more about the company right here.
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