13 NYC Fashion Startups and Companies Melding Tech and Style

At the forefront of budding trends and home to one of the world’s biggest fashion capitals, New York has style. New York City is a global leader in wholesale buying, and boasts an incomparable market where couture has to be cutting-edge and profoundly original in order to sell.  

Today, technology and fashion are continuously overlapping, as prêt-à-porter pieces are available in abundance online and the traditional brick-and-mortar shops that populate SoHo have moved into the e-commerce age.

Here’s a roundup of a few of the top fashion startups in NYC that are taking the city by storm, and will be sure to compliment your favorite wearable.

 

Rue Gilt Groupe describes itself as “a leading off-price e-commerce portfolio company.” It has three websites — Rue La La, Gilt and Shop Premium Outlets  — where online shoppers can find deals on popular designer brands. Rue Gilt Groupe incorporates technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence into its business operations to improve the shopping experience and help its customers discover items and brands they’ll love.

 

Rent the Runway allows customers to rent designer merchandise and accessories instead of purchasing them, with styles from over 270 top brands. Using the platform customers rent a piece of clothing for four to eight days, choose a delivery date, receive a free backup size and return everything for free.

 

Mack Weldon is a digital clothing company offering men’s basics and accessories made with premium and innovative fabrics. Launched in 2012, Mack Weldon's focus has always been about consistent fit, quality fabrics and ethical manufacturing.

 

 

Moda Operandi is the leading platform for fashion discovery, connecting consumers directly with established and emerging designers from around the world. Moda has a robust global network of physical showrooms and personal stylists, carries 1,000+ designers across women’s, men’s, fine jewelry, and home, and ships to more than 125 countries.

 

Bonobos is a retailer offering better-fitting men’s apparel ranging from activewear to tailored suits. The company boasts an online store as well as guideshops with personalized fitting and styling.

 

JOOR is an online fashion marketplace for wholesale buying. JOOR is the largest B2B fashion commerce business, where brands and retailers can connect and interact online. JOOR’s browser and apps help brands display their inventory, communicate with retailers and transact with buyers. JOOR’s platform helps retailers place orders, run reports and track budgets.

 

Birchbox is a service that sends their subscribers five, high quality samples of beauty, skin and hair care products. The box is customized to each user and gives brands a new way to reach potential customers. Not just for ladies, Birchbox now offers boxes with grooming and care products for men.

 

Bombfell is a mens clothing service, sending hand-picked casual attire to subscribers. Users can veto any item picked for them and have seven days to try on their clothes. Unlike similar services, with Bombfell, the more items a users keeps, the more they save on their overall purchase.

 

Edited creates data tools for the apparel industry. Just like major search engines, Edited uses crawlers to scour retailer and brand websites using machine learning technology to understand the information they aggregate. With Edited, brands can make better decisions with trends, products, pricing and timing. Brands like Topshop, Tommy Hilfiger and Net-a-Porter all use Edited to gain insights into their businesses.

 

Glossier is a beauty and style company all about celebrating real women and girls. The company got their start through their beloved beauty and style blog, Into The Gloss, where they tried just about every beauty product they could get their hands on. Now, with the input and recommendations of women everywhere, Glossier is reinventing the way girls and women think about and shop for skincare and makeup.

 

Shoptiques brings boutique shopping online. While boutiques traditionally don’t have the large web presence that online retailers do, Shoptiques works as an online marketplace full of boutique inventory. The company currently partners with over 15,000 boutiques in three different countries.

 

PERCH aims to boost retail sales through interactive engagement in stores. As customers touch and pick up products, PERCH extends experiential media to the customer in the form of captivating physical displays. This tactic increases customers’ dwell times as well as sell-through rates for retailers. While clothing brands are increasingly spending more time and money on digital campaigns, PERCH tangibly leverages content in stores.

 

With an office in Hudson Yards, Tapestry is the holding company that holds several luxury brands such as Coach, Stuart Weitzman and Kate Spade New York. It implements features and digital tools that aim to elevate the experience for shoppers on its brands’ e-commerce sites. For example, it added the Coach (Re)Loved program that allows the company to sell used bags on its own website, which it did in response to the rising popularity of secondhand Coach bags.