NEWS
Week In Review
Tom Ford will show his Fall 2020 collection in Los Angeles, according to media reports. The designer, film director and chairman of the Council of Fashion Designers of America said that he would produce his Los Angeles show on Feb. 7, which is a couple of days before the 92nd Annual Academy Awards. Ford’s Los Angeles show is scheduled to run concurrent with New York Fashion Week, which is scheduled to take place in Manhattan Feb. 6–13. Steven Kolb, CFDA’s president, was quoted saying that Ford’s Los Angeles show would not affect New York Fashion Week.
Shopafor, a social-networking gifting platform, started business on Dec. 11. The Los Angeles–headquartered venture announced that it is the only social-networking space that uses artificial intelligence to help people pick gifts for one another. Shopafor founder Chris Herbert said the inspiration for this venture came from poor gifting choices for his daughter’s birthday. “My wife and I were frustrated by the number of gifts that were either toys for kids four to five years older than her or clothes that were for a child half her age. We saw it all as such a waste, and I wanted to figure out a solution to prevent it from happening,” he said.
WeBuy is an on-demand shopping platform that is currently being beta tested in Tel Aviv, Israel. Emil Guberman, WeBuy’s founder and chief executive officer, said that his platform will make shopping easier. The platform aims to match consumers and sellers in real time. Guberman critiqued e-shopping as being needlessly complex. Consumers must travel to various digital commerce sites to find deals and services rather than going to a central place to find what they need. WeBuy is crowdfunding on exitvalley.com.
The Renewal Workshop, based in Cascade Locks, Ore., announced a $5.5-million Series A financing round, it was announced on Dec. 11. The Renewal Workshop takes discarded apparel and textiles and then repairs the damaged clothes to sell or uses the upcycled fabrics to make sustainable clothing. Money from the financing round will be used to expand in Europe. The round’s investors include Social Impact Ventures, SHIFT Invest and Quadia with participation from existing U.S. investors Closed Loop Ventures, Gratitude Railroad, the Portland Seed Fund and the High Meadows Investment Group.
Running Bear Ramirez, an activist, fashion consultant and member of the San Manuel tribe, based in San Bernardino County, Calif., organized a friends-and-family-only Gucci pop-up shop at the Chateau Marmont hotel in West Hollywood, Calif., on Dec. 12. The pop-up is to raise funds for the Native American Diabetes Pilot Program, which provides medically tailored meals and nutritional counseling to Native Americans in Los Angeles County living with diabetes. The sale will run Dec. 13–15. When customers mention “Project Angel Food” while purchasing goods at the Gucci store on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, Gucci will donate 10 percent of the proceeds to Running Bear’s program.
