Ask HN: Need advice on my Fashion Startup

6 points Sep 9, 2023

Hi - I'm building a Fashion Search Engine called FashionFeed (http://fashionfeed.app). It's main purpose is to filter by clothing models that look like you (same Ethnicity, Age, Height, Weight).

It's still a work in progress & I only have a few photos up. But can I receive your brutally honest feedback on the site please?

Thanks.

logicalmonster Sep 11, 2023

For what it's worth, I think some people on HN are going to convey some (IMO faux) offense at the ethnicity aspect of this project, but it seems interesting to me. I'd like to see what Greek or Italian people my age wear if I'm planning on vacationing there and want to have a solid party outfit. Or maybe I'm looking for a gift for my friend from India that would be something he may want to wear.

That said...

a) I think the categorizations and groupings can use significant work.

b) The site needs to be seeded with far more and more realistic content to have a chance.

c) There's a giant step 2 of this project missing. Ok, I see some great outfits on your site. Now what? Can I buy them from you, or can you tell me where to get them? What's the endgame and benefit of using you over Pinterest or other fashion boards?

PS: You spelled Nigerian wrong. Since people are sensitive to this stuff, you should really ensure you get it right.

houseatrielah Sep 9, 2023

The value-prop isn't strong enough. Let's say you had it well populated -- and I want to buy that shirt -- you probably can't sell me that shirt, you might not know the brand, it might be out of stock, etc. What mechanism is getting me closer to looking like the guy in the picture -- is it just and ideaboard -- if it is I'll just go look on pinterest.

nsesites OP Sep 9, 2023

Thanks for your feedback. I'm not selling the shirt, just allowing Brands to post their links to that shirt along with the photo. I don't think Pinterest allows this level of granularity of filtering, so that's what I can offer.

muzani Sep 11, 2023

Race is a weird way of filtering. A lot of us look like many kinds of races.

One thought is maybe skin color and palette. I think there's specific styles too. Some like retro looks, some like something romantic, some like matching colors, and some want complementary colors.

Very often we look at those who do not look like us either. This might be kind of a western thing to want to look at ugly models or something, but I view myself as a little more in shape than I am, and would buy clothes that look good on someone more attractive.

I'd say do something like Pinterest meets https://same.energy/, where people can browse for clothes they like, and it'll show something similar to those clothes.

Quinzel Sep 9, 2023

I think Google is already doing something similar… https://www.wired.com/story/google-generative-ai-clothes-sho...

How do you plan to compete? What’s your value proposition? Etc…

nsesites OP Sep 9, 2023

Thanks. My main value prop is to create a simple/clean site that allows anyone to filter down to people that look exactly like them & see links to their outfit. Just a more targeted way to shop by the person, rather than the product. Of course I need Fashion Brands to signup and regularly post photos. Eventually I want to have every demographic covered (ethnicity, age, height, weight).

profchemai Sep 9, 2023

Two big points I see is 1) that normal people are not models, 2) peoples looks will vary widely based on their country of origin.

So I could see this working better with normal people and more fields that are not focused on country (ethnicity, skin color, body type, etc.)

nsesites OP Sep 9, 2023

Thanks, so I actually want normal people to post rather than models. In order to have a more natural feed of photos that covers every demographic.

gardenhedge Sep 9, 2023

What's the tech stack?

nsesites OP Sep 9, 2023

Vanilla HTML + CSS + PHP + SQL. No Frameworks.

nikonyrh Sep 12, 2023

http://vanilla-js.com :D

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