Luxury for everyone, the message from FaB New York meet-up
New York tech startups are disrupting fashion and beauty industry by making luxury goods and experiences accessible to as many people as possible.
These startups took center stage at the second Fashion and Beauty Tech (FaB) New York meet-up held last March 7.
How do they do it?
Scentbird is ‘selling’ designer perfumes at a much lower price by providing a perfume subscription service. They deliver an 8ml bottle of your choice of fragrance straight to your doorstep.
Each bottle is enough to last a month or about 120 sprays. You can now say goodbye to leftover perfume or a wasted dollar. The 30-day supply means you will only be paying a fraction of a full-bottle cost of designer perfume.
Scentbird also brings you the luxury of exploring different scents every month with its inventory of over 450 luxury brands.
With the New Yorkers’ fast-paced lifestyle and high-pressure jobs, luxury can sometimes mean having the time to travel from one borough to another.
ArtistOnGo solves this problem by allowing hair and make-up stylists to lease high-class hair salon spaces anywhere in New York for an hourly or daily basis.
“For consumers these days, the greatest luxury is a convenience,” ArtistOnGo founder and CEO Dharmendra Manwani said.
With the service they provide, anyone’s favorite beauty stylists are now within an arm’s reach.
The beauty stylists, on the other hand, get to freely practice their craft without worrying about space or “infrastructure.”
FaB panelist Sapna Shah of investment firm Red Giraffe Advisors added, “luxury previously meant personalization and customization (of goods and services) and was only within the grasp of the wealthy. However, everyday consumers expect such things to be the norm now.”
Ever heard of affordable premium men’s shoes specially handcrafted by English craftsmen? Then you must not have heard of Blackstock and Weber yet.
The company, founded by Chris Echevarria, sells those premium shoes for as low as $149, which would normally cost as much as $2,500 a pair.
Their online platform removed the need for a middleman that’s why the cost was significantly reduced.
Kate McLeod of Kate McLeod Inc. disruption style in the beauty industry brings transparency to a whole new level.
A ‘traveling saleswoman,’ McLeod travels around the US and makes her famous Body Stone moisturizer in front of her customers.
She shows that her products use no synthetics and only natural ingredients.
“People are looking for something different and something they can sympathize with and understand,” she said.
Democratizing luxury goods and experiences through technology is relevant not just in the world of beauty and fashion.
This kind of disruption has the power to transform world markets in the production and consumption of high-quality goods and services.
Affordable and/or cheap products may no longer equate to low quality.
More people will demand higher quality products at a more reasonable price. More goods and services, which were once considered as ‘luxury’ or high-class can now be afforded by the majority.
FaB is a community of over 1,500 fashion and beauty tech entrepreneurs and investors worldwide. It has branches 12 major cities including San Francisco, Tokyo, Seoul, Paris, London, and Shanghai.
Text: Christine Roque
Original text (Japanese): Tomoko Kaichi
