Regine Harr, co-founder of Nelou and Elad Baron, founder of Sparkrebel, have taken online shopping to a higher level, aiming to provide the best experience possible while enhancing ecommerce for the fashion consumer. What makes them unique? To start, Sparkrebel takes the discovery element in shopping and combines it with sharing and blogging. Think Pinterest but solely for fashion. Their site, Sparkrebel. com, has a simple concept: make it easy to search for the perfect outfit. Elad Baron built Sparkrebel with the intention of combining fashion and technology in a fun and innovative way. Users of his site can post and share their interests, also known as “sparking,” as well as be directed to where they can purchase their favorite items they just sparked. The website’s format allows users to keep their enjoyed picks shared on one page, while having the ability to group their favorite designers or styles together by interest. The site has different
categories ranging from accessories, apparel, beauty, celeb style and much more. Nelou, another technology driven company, offers 24/7 access to really amazing fashion talent from one corner of the globe to the next. “Nelou.com is a platform for independent fashion labels from around the world. We started in January 2010 and have since gathered in one-place almost 500 designers from over 30 countries. The talent is really amazing and the demand really great, stated Harr.” Nelou’s site is extremely easy to navigate while also being very entertaining. Their designer pages offer personal profiles of the designers to help build a personal connection between the designer and the Nelou user. Elad and Regine shared with Raine some of their inspirations, goals and ideas and why their companies are creating a new fashion revolution.
Photos courtesy Sparkrebel.com
RAINE: How did Sparkrebel get started? What was the inspiration that “sparked” such a global trend? SPARKREBEL: We noticed very interesting developments that started happening on the Internet and from there we had the idea to expand it to fashion and beauty for all women and not just teenagers. The trends we spotted were mainly the visual discovery tools that are popular, as well as the rise of social curation. RAINE: What inspired you to launch Nelou? NELOU: As consumers ourselves, wherever we’d go we would see someone with the same item that we already owned. We needed a solution to the problem. We thought okay; in order to be able to fully express who you are, you need to be able to access items from all around the world. The solution: as there are thousands of independent and immersing designers that no one knows about, there are just as many ways of diversifying one’s wardrobe by shopping from these independent labels. Nelou successfully introduces these designers to a growing global community. RAINE: What was your greatest challenge? NELOU: The biggest challenge in the beginning was to get up and running. Finding the right people and starting the business was the biggest challenge. RAINE: What do you see the company doing next? SPARKREBEL: Well, we just launched a month ago, so we have a very long way ahead of us. We have so many ideas. In general our goal is to have you log in wherever you are and we will effectively be able to guess what will wow you. This is of course is very challenging but we will always strive to get closer and closer to predicting what you love best. For true fashion lovers, Sparkrebel and Nelou are must haves on your browser bookmarks. Rai n e M a g a z i n e - V o l u m e 1 3
19