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Sarah Curran, founder and CEO of fashion etailer My-Wardrobe.com, is celebrating the relaunch of the website on 22 February. The business has grown by more than 100 per cent year on year, with their best performing month to date being December last year. FMWF spoke to Sarah about the thinking behind the redesign.
A Q&A with Sarah Curran:
Why have you decided to relaunch the My-Wardrobe.com website?
When My-Wardrobe was launched in 2006 it was built around intuition as to who our customer was, and that was not qualified. Now we have worked with an agency to research our customers: we have had focus groups, visited customers in their homes and watched how they shopped. We found we were spot on about our customers in terms of age but the level of expectation for designer brands and disposable income were higher.
What have you learned about your customers?
Women want amazing pieces that fit into their everyday lifestyle – like an amazing Mulberry bag or a fantastic pair of shoes. It is not about ladies who lunch necessarily – we just realised that women want to have that special item and we saw a huge opportunity in that.
Noone has a work wardrobe and a weekend wardrobe anymore. Women have one wardrobe and they adapt it. It is amazing to wear something glamorous in the day or something casual and dress it up.
The new-look website will now feature ‘street style’ photography. Why is that important?
Street-style photography is capturing the woman with her skinny latte striding to the office, for example. It is not in a studio, all polished and unrelatable, it is putting the clothes in everyday life. Often women might go straight from the office to a function for example, and we are recognising that. We wanted to make the browsing experience as easy as possible.
Why is editorial content important for fashion etailers?
For the redesign I brought in Fiona Mackintosh, who was editor of Elle and founding editor of Grazia. We have also relaunched our style guide which is sent to top customers, editors and customers who request it – 100 Things You Need to Know For the Season.
The idea is to create a sense of community and an environment where people belong. That drives customer loyalty.
How was 2010 for My-Wardrobe.com?
2010 was a great year. We are only five years old and we have seen accelerated growth of 100 per cent year on year.
What mistakes have you made?
We have made changes and mistakes do happen. Last year we went cheaper with our products. But actually what our customers wanted was something which was a special item, which felt statement. It was not price sensitivity. So there was a couple of months where our offering wasn’t right. But we changed that by Autumn/Winter 2010.
What is your goal for My-Wardrobe?
My goal is to make My-Wardrobe the number one globally for everyday luxury.
Do you have any advice for women trying to balance busy working-lives and family?
We spend so much of life working, you have got to love what you do.
I had my son Jake when I was 30 and I had an expectation of a lifestyle. I thought “I cannot wait for Andrew, my husband, to do it for me. I think a lot of people are feeling like that. I have met so many women setting up businesses and they have so much energy – it is a really good thing that women are wanting to do things for themselves.
Business-wise I have had one of the worst and one of the best days in one day. I have learnt to break things down into bite-size chunks and never accept that its the end. There was a day in 2007 when one minute I was thinking we were going to lose the business, and then at the 59th hour an investor came along and we were celebrating with champagne. That year was a really difficult time.
Tags: famous entrepreneurs, Fashion Industry, My-Wardrobe.com, Online Industry, Sarah Curran, SME case Studies - Startup Stories, successful women, Vicki Owen, Women in Science Engineering and Technology, Women in the Fashion Industry
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February 13th, 2011 at 11:30 amThe Fashion Guide » Blog Archive » My-Wardrobe Set to Open Doors on New Site says:
[...] Here is an interview with My-wardrobe founder Sarah Curran. [...]