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Inclusivity has also been at the heart of Harry's mission throughout his shows, visible in everything from the merch to his spectacular performances. He worked with the US education organisation GLSEN on their pride campaign, creating limited-edition rainbow versions of his "Treat People With Kindness" slogan T-shirts to raise awareness about protecting LGBTQ+ youth in schools. In San Jose, he even helped Grace, a fan who was attending her 10th Harry Styles concert, come out to her mother. Meanwhile, in London, fans echoed his message by collaborating on the Rainbow Project, where thousands of pieces of coloured paper were used to transform the O2 into a giant pride flag. During his final tour stop in LA, Harry commented on a fan's sign that read, "I'm gay and I love you." His response was, "We're all a little bit gay aren't we?"

So, what's next for Harry? In an Instagram post following his final show, he wrote, "I'm off to write some more music and I hope I'll be seeing you again very soon. Thank you to my band, the crew, and all of you for making this tour so wonderful. Treat people with kindness. Goodbye for now. I love you all." Thanks for the memories Harry - let's just hope the #HROUGHT doesn't last too long.

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Harry Styles's Tour Just Raised $1.2 Million For Charity

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Inclusivity has also been at the heart of Harry's mission throughout his shows, visible in everything from the merch to his spectacular performances. He worked with the US education organisation GLSEN on their pride campaign, creating limited-edition rainbow versions of his "Treat People With Kindness" slogan T-shirts to raise awareness about protecting LGBTQ+ youth in schools.

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Harry & Zayn rocked the same fashion brand's jackets recently. Picture: Getty Images

Harry Styles and Zayn (who is back in public for the first time in like, ever) have been spotted rocking the same ethical fashion brand recently, and we're happy to know they have the same taste!

Two former One Direction members, Harry Styles and Zayn Malik have been crushing on the same sustainable fashion brand, Bode, recently, both donning the brightly coloured, one of a kind pieces as they stroll through the streets of New York, and it's the fashion reunion we didn't even know we needed.
Harry Styles' Fans Are Painting Their Nails Like Him
Zayn, who has been spotted out and about more in 2020 than he had been for the last six months of 2019, has rocked at least two different jackets from the brand that turns antique materials for a seriously cool and modern look.

Both times he's been spotted in their apparel, he's been with supermodel, Gigi Hadid, who he's rekindled his very on/off relationship with, and she definitely seems to have something to do with the fact he's happy to be seen in public again.

Both Harry and Zayn wore a custom made Bode like a couple 😍❤️
- 𝐓𝐞𝐞 ✿ (@zarrycuppicake) January 13, 2020

Harry's entire wardrobe's been almost entirely dominated by the brand recently- having rocked Bode on a whole load of occasions since making his musical comeback.

From his (iconic) music video for 'Adore You', to his interview with Zane Lowe, a photoshoot with The Face and his Saturday Night Live boiler suit, and has also been spotted walking the streets of New York in their wacky jackets (which we know he loves so much).

Fans, eagle-eyed as ever, quickly noticed the former bandmates were loving the brand, with one writing, "Both Harry and Zayn wore a custom made Bode like a couple" and whilst that may be a stretch, it is definitely cute to see them loving on the same styles and fashion.

Harry Styles rocked Bode in the 'Adore You' video. Picture: YouTube/ Harry Styles

> Download Our App For All The Latest Harry Styles News

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Harry Styles & Zayn Malik are obsessed with the same clothing brand

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Harry Styles and Zayn (who is back in public for the first time in like, ever) have been spotted rocking the same ethical fashion brand recently, and we're happy to know they have the same taste!

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The British singer-songwriter enlisted one of fashion's elite for a limited-edition collaboration.

The British singer-songwriter enlisted one of fashion's elite for a limited-edition collaboration.

After fronting Gucci's Pre-Fall 2019 campaign earlier this year, Harry Styles is further strengthening his relationship with the Italian fashion house for a limited-edition t-shirt. In collaboration with creative director Alessandro Michele, the starlet vocalist just released an exclusive design that celebrates the release of his studio album .

Providing a designer-infused take on previous merch, this latest rendition features a lovestruck, bleeding heart with Styles' name scribbled in the middle. The album's name frames the heart in handwritten text, and the superstar's last name is seemingly crossed out inside the heart. Sure to be a collector's item among Styles' fans and fashion enthusiasts alike, this exclusive t-shirt is also sourced entirely from sustainable fabrics.

The Harry Styles x Alessandro Michele exclusive t-shirt is available to purchase now on the official Harry Styles website for $75. Each purchase comes with a digital copy of , and a portion of the proceeds will benefit the Global Fund for Women, one of the world's leading foundations for gender equality. Take a look at the collaborative design below.

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Harry Styles and Alessandro Michele Released a Limited-Edition T-Shirt

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The British singer-songwriter enlisted one of fashion's elite for a limited-edition collaboration. The British singer-songwriter enlisted one of fashion's elite for a limited-edition collaboration. After fronting Gucci's Pre-Fall 2019 campaign earlier this year, Harry Styles is further strengthening his relationship with the Italian fashion house for a limited-edition t-shirt.

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Vegan News, Plant Based Living, Food, Health & more

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Popstar Harry Styles has been praised by his fans - for using a vegan pie as a part of an onstage prank.

The well-coiffed singer 'pie-d' support act Mabel McVey in the face following their final performance together in Dublin.

McVey was a good sport about the prank - which saw Styles attack her with silly string and the pie while she was singing - play fighting, then giving him a hug.

'At least it was vegan'

Taking to Twitter afterwards, McVey wrote: "At least [the pie was vegan."

One of her fans replied: "Literally, how can you be so damn respectful that you ensure you throw a vegan cream pie at a vegan?

"I love this boy too much and I'm so happy he respects my fellow vegans."

Headlines

While Styles isn't vegan himself, his antics with the pie endeared him to multiple fans, with another adding: "A true vegan lover. Another reason to stan."

Another said: "Exactly, my little vegan heart just melted!"

One fan simply wrote: "Aww so considerate!"

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Pop Icon Harry Styles Praised For 'Respecting Vegans'

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Popstar Harry Styles has been praised by his fans - for using a vegan pie as a part of an onstage prank. The well-coiffed singer 'pie-d' support act Mabel McVey in the face following their final performance together in Dublin.

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We're committed to making clothes with a smaller environmental impact in places that treat workers well. So, when it comes to choosing where we make our clothes, we look at a number of different factors - quality, price, speed, reduced environmental impact, and working conditions for the people in the facility. Our partners share a common vision of sustainability, accountability, and transparency. We published Our Factories list so you can learn more about the factories behind our clothes.

An audit is just a snapshot in time, so we prioritize active continuous improvement, root cause analysis and development of necessary management systems.

We work with 17 finished goods factories in Los Angeles, and 11 subcontractor facilities (e.g. printers and embroiderers). Internationally, we have 14 suppliers across 18 factories in China, Mexico, Turkey, Morocco, Portugal, and India.*

We currently require all our direct cut, sew & finish manufacturing partners to adhere to our Code of Conduct and additional policies (basically our requirements for ethical operations), and be monitored for compliance and continuous improvement. Our Code of Conduct references the Global Social Compliance Programme's (GSCP) Code of Conduct which represents international standards for fair labor conditions and fundamental labor rights.

We require our suppliers to participate in independent, third-party social assessments to ensure fair, safe and healthy working conditions throughout our supply chain. The goal of our assessments is not only to help evaluate our supplier's overall compliance but to also identify progress and stimulate improvement. All substandard audit findings must be remediated in a timely manner.

Here's an abbreviated version of ourSustainable Partners Guidebook that highlights our Code of Conduct, auditing and monitoring requirements, and our RSL.

* Last updated January 2020

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We're committed to making clothes with a smaller environmental impact in places that treat workers well. So, when it comes to choosing where we make our clothes, we look at a number of different factors - quality, price, speed, reduced environmental impact, and working conditions for the people in the facility.

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We put sustainability at the core of everything we do. We invest in green building infrastructure to minimize our waste, water, and energy footprints. By providing on-the-job training and opportunities for growth, we also invest in the people who make this revolution possible.

We put sustainability at the core of everything we do. We invest in green building infrastructure to minimize our waste, water, and energy footprints. By providing on-the-job training and opportunities for growth, we also invest in the people who make this revolution possible.

The Sustainability Report
Big companies report their profits in quarterly earnings reports. We think companies should be accountable for more than just profits. That's why we send you guys our quarterly sustainability report so we can track our progress together. Sign up for our newsletters to get these in your email, or read our2016 report, 2017 report, 2018 report, 2019 report, and 2020 report.

RefScale
At Reformation we think about all the costs in creating fashion-not just the price tag. RefScale tracks our environmental footprint by adding up the pounds of carbon dioxide emitted and gallons of water we use, and pounds of waste we generate. Then we calculate how Reformation's products help reduce these impacts compared with most clothes bought in the US. We share this information on every product page of our website and tell you exactly what impact each garment has on the environment. This way we all get to see the total cost of fashion so you can make empowered choices, and we can keep creating better solutions when it comes to making clothes.

How it works
It's all about math, and we're super into it. The whole equation follows the lifecycle of clothes-everything from growing textile fibers and making fabric, dyeing, moving materials, manufacturing, packaging, shipping, garment care, and even recycling clothes when you're done with them.

The totals
We also publish the totals for all the resources we used, saved, and offset. We can't wait to see how all those little costs add up and actually make a big difference in the RefScale. Read all about thedetails and methodology.

Offsets
It's not enough just to manufacture sustainably, so we also invest in projects that replace some of the resources we've spent, which is where offsets come in. We work with organizations to promote resource efficiency or reduction efforts within our own supply chain. So far, we've supported projects that encouraged the use of clean energy, helped install water filters for houses in Honduras, and contributed 140 million gallons of freshwater to critically dewatered rivers and wetlands in California and Colorado. Kinda like Venmo, but for the Earth.

We're Climate Neutral
Our stuff has been 100% carbon-neutral since 2015, but now we work with the non-profit organizationClimate Neutral to make it official. Through their rigorous certification program, they verify that we've achieved net-zero carbon emissions. It's basically like getting a fancy seal of approval.

Energy-efficiency
We source electricity offsets from 100% wind power suppliers and use LED lighting and Energy Star-rated appliances in our offices.

Recycling
We recycle, compost organic wastes, and recycle or donate our textile scraps whenever possible. Zero waste is our goal. Right now, we recycle about 75% of all our garbage. Our goal is to reach over 85%. Every little thing adds up.

Our team
Over three-quarters of Reformation's management team are women or people from underrepresented populations.

Benefits
We recently updated our benefits package for hourly Ref employees, increased holiday and vacation time for hourly team members, and provided volunteer time off for all employees. We also provide health benefits to all full-time employees including our manufacturing team. And we've made getting to work part of our mission by offering Metro passes to our entire HQ team to encourage more use of public transportation.

E-commerce
On average, e-commerce uses about 30% less energy than traditional retail. Good news because the majority of our customers use our online site to make purchases (we're all for never getting out of bed either). We also calculate the carbon footprint of our web server and your screen's energy demand while browsing the Ref website. And yes, we offset that too!

Hangers & totes
Typical hangers are made of plastic or metal and have the lifespan of only 3 months. We use recycled paper hangers to lessen the demand for new materials and to keep junk from landfills. Americans toss 102 billion plastic bags a year. We opt for reusable totes because they lighten the load. Plus they're way cuter.

Green building
It's our mission to design innovative and eco stores. We incorporate materials like LED fixtures, rammed earth, recycled fabric insulation, and other stuff to make our stores as sustainable as possible. We also calculate the construction footprint, and offset our store builds 100%.

Six of our California retail stores (Platform, Melrose, Vintage Melrose, Santa Monica, Fillmore, Valencia) and HQ West are now green business certified, which basically means we're operating using strategies that improve energy savings, water efficiency, resource stewardship, and reducing CO2 emissions. You know, all the good stuff. We're super proud and happy to be part of the green business community of Los Angeles and San Francisco, as well as the California Green Business Network. Learn more about it at the California Green Business Network website.

Sustainable purchasing
Reformation is committed to minimizing our environmental impact and achieving fair, safe and healthy working conditions throughout our supply chain. We seek to partner with suppliers who share a common vision of sustainability, accountability and transparency. We currently require that suppliers meet our standards for: social responsibility, safe & non-toxic, and better materials.

Local manufacturing
Over 50% of our cutting and sewing is done in Los Angeles and we manufacture many of our products in our own factory (depending on the season and the styles we're making that week). All other garments are produced by responsible manufacturing partners here in the U.S. or abroad using our same sustainable standards and materials.

Dyeing & Finishing
The dyeing stage in textile manufacturing not only uses a lot of energy and water, but it also introduces the fabric to chemicals found in inks and pigments. We test all of our stuff against our Restricted Substance List (RSL) to confirm there are no hazardous substances in our products and to ensure our products are safe, and comply with international laws. Our RSL is based on the AFIRM Group industry level standards. This list applies to raw materials, finished goods and its concentrations. Download the full version of our RSL with concentration limits here.

In addition to testing all of our stuff against our RSL we currently try and work with dye houses and printers that have the following certified dying systems.

BLUESIGN® system
With an A+ grade in textile dyeing, Bluesign certified dyeing facilities only use safe input chemicals, monitor their air and water emissions and ensure worker safety so that the dyed fabric is safe for the end user, workers and the environment. As of 2017, all of Reformation solid silk and velvet is Bluesign certified.

OEKO-TEX® Standard 100
Similar to Bluesign, Oekotex also checks for the presence of hazardous chemicals in the dyed fabric. It checks for carcinogens, azo dyes and other chemical limits in accordance to the European REACH standards.

Supplies
A business uses a ton of stuff. To manage our impact, we adopted Environmentally Preferred Purchasing policies across all our operations for things like office and cleaning supplies, shipping materials, and manufacturing equipment. We prioritize products with recycled-content, and opt for solutions that are recyclable or biodegradable. We also use green cleaning products whenever possible.

Packaging
Right now, we have a couple different bags in circulation. Some are 100% compostable bags made of bio-based materials. But since composting in the US isn't quite there yet in terms of accessibility, we've switched to 100% recycled LDPE bags with a biodegradable polymer (BDP) that allows it to break down in landfills. Just an FYI - you might still get a compostable bag until we fully phase them out.

Service & community
We think it's pretty cool when you have a positive impact on your community so we offer incentives for our employees to lend a hand to their community. Some causes are best served simply by donating some cash money, so we do that too when it makes sense.

Service days
We provide our staff with four paid days off per year to volunteer. Two of which are company-wide service days and the other two are left for employees to volunteer for causes they are passionate about. We also regularly highlight volunteer opportunities to make giving back a little more doable. In the past we've organized a beach clean-up at Playa Del Rey and spent a day volunteering with Kiss the Ground, a non-profit organization that focuses on regenerative agriculture.

Relief Fund
We created the Reformation Relief Fund to provide short-term support to our team members facing significant financial hardship. Through the fund, any employee can request tangible aid, or lend a helping hand to colleagues who need it, all within the Ref community.

Staff birthdays
We celebrate staff birthdays by donating to TreePeople, an organization that supports urban forests in LA by planting a tree in their name.

Collaborations
We also give back through sustainability-focused collaborations and initiatives like our launches with Blueland and New Balance that furthered our mission to bring sustainable lifestyle choices to everyone. In 2020, we partnered with The City of Los Angeles on LA Protects, an initiative to organize local manufacturers to make five million non-medical masks for brave people doing essential work during COVID-19, ensuring medical grade masks can be available to healthcare workers.

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We put sustainability at the core of everything we do. We invest in green building infrastructure to minimize our waste, water, and energy footprints. By providing on-the-job training and opportunities for growth, we also invest in the people who make this revolution possible. We put sustainability at the core of everything we do.

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PARLEY IS THE SPACE WHERE CREATORS, THINKERS AND LEADERS COME TOGETHER TO RAISE AWARENESS FOR THE BEAUTY AND FRAGILITY OF OUR OCEANS AND COLLABORATE ON PROJECTS THAT CAN END THEIR DESTRUCTION.

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Big companies report their profits in quarterly earnings reports. We think companies should be accountable for more than just profits. Here's a look at what we were up to in 2019.

Our sustainability report card

We're never done challenging ourselves to evolve and be better. So we decided to work with a smart group of people at Eco-Age and have them evaluate us across twelve different areas of sustainability. It's kind of like getting a fancy report card.

Here's what we were graded on

A few things we're extra proud of from 2019

Here are some updates on goals from 2019:

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Big companies report their profits in quarterly earnings reports. We think companies should be accountable for more than just profits. Here's a look at what we were up to in 2019. Our sustainability report card We're never done challenging ourselves to evolve and be better.

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Only a minority of plastic pollution floats on or near the surface, while the majority sinks to the ocean floor. While it still seems impossible to clean up the Vortexes, huge volumes of plastic debris wash up on beaches and shorelines, where it can be collected relatively easily and without complex technology by the global Parley network of cleanup organizations.

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It all started with wet hair in London. Sustainable clothing retailer Reformation founder Yael Aflalo needed a hair dryer and everyone told her to go to Argos.

"It was horribly small and gross and looked like a DMV," Aflalo told me as we sat in modern white upholstered chairs-they wouldn't stand a chance at any DMV - in the chic lounge area at the not-yet-open San Francisco store. The brand's fourth brick and mortar opened on February 21 at 914 Valencia Street.

"[Argos] had these phone book type things with those little tiny notepads with those weird, shitty library pencils. You flip through and find the blow dryer and the price and you go to the front and pay for it. Sixty seconds later my blow dryer was all packaged and ready to go and I walked out with it."

Grossness notwithstanding, Argos sparked an idea. Aflalo realized that a high-volume retail store doesn't require a cavernous, multi-story store where no one knows whether your size might be lurking somewhere in the piles on the floor, where jarring music makes you feel old, where you feel like you deserve a medal for completing a purchase.

"How do you not know if you have a size? It's 2017," Aflalo said. "Know if you have it or not."

Buying a Tesla illustrated how it could be done with a luxury touch. "I was like, this is so easy. You don't have to have all the cars here, obviously. You don't need these gigantic lots."

When I first heard the store was tech-enabled, my eyes glazed over as they always do when I read such things. Usually, it means some kind of tricky mirror that doesn't really serve the customer. Uniqlo, Rebecca Minkoff and various department stores have incorporated in-store technologies that are fun for a minute, but don't have much of a practical purpose.

So I'm glad I didn't write off Reformation's system without checking it out for myself. I was pleasantly surprised to learn it works like Argos, Tesla, Apple and Bonobos rolled into one efficient and luxurious service.

You can grab pieces you'd like to try on from the racks (one of each specimen hangs neatly from racks with actual space between the hangars), or you can browse large screens mounted on walls around the store, where you might find items not on the showroom floor. Either way, you use the screens to place items in your digital dressing room. When you do, humans begin collecting those items for your IRL dressing room.

After you enter the dressing room, stuff gets fun. Each room has a magic wardrobe with double doors so that when it's shut, a Reformation associate can open it from the back and add your items. When your closet is ready, an alert pops up on a screen inside the dressing room (this didn't actually work for me, i.e. I didn't get a notification, but they were still working out the glitches. Instead, I heard the associate close the magic door so I could tell I was good to go).

The best part is that if you need a new size or color, you request it from the dressing room's touchscreen. No peeking through the crack in the door half naked to ask for another size-or taking the time to get dressed and find it yourself because you've been abandoned (this is usually when I give up and leave).

Another perk is that the lighting is customizable with golden, sexy time, basic and cool settings. Refreshingly, none made me feel horrified by my reflection as per typical dressing room experiences.

In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that I almost never try clothes on anymore because dressing rooms are so unpleasant and the mirrors so unflattering. For example, just last week I took my teen son to Dick's Sporting Goods. When we finally found the sizes we needed-no easy task-the dressing room was locked like a fortress and strangely enormous for a room where only three items were allowed in at a time. A sign indicated I should press a white button for assistance-the button made no response. I thought maybe a beep? A color change, perhaps? I got nothing so I pressed a few more times (elevator style) and was scolded that I only needed to press it once by the associate who eventually showed up.

Meanwhile, at Reformation, you can plug in your own music-good riddance too-loud Muzak. My only complaint was the cord was too short to keep my music plugged in and take selfies at the same time. You can also connect to the store's wifi to save on that precious data.

All in all, I could hang out in one of these dressing rooms, requesting new garments to try and Instagramming my heart out, for a while. Which brings up my biggest concern about the setup: What if people chill in the five dressing rooms for so long that lines begin to form?

"I don't know," Aflalo said. "Maybe people are going to want to be in the dressing rooms for like and hour and we need to have 10. But I don't want to have 5,000 square foot gigantic club stores. I like it cozy. So maybe it's about having multiple locations in SF as opposed to one monster store."

I'm pretty sure there's room for more than one Reformation in San Francisco. Stay tuned! Here are a few more bits from my interview with Aflalo. And if you try out the dressing rooms in SF, let me know how it goes!

1. Welcome to the Bay Area! What was it about San Francisco that made you want to open a store here?

"San Francisco is our third biggest online market in the U.S. after NY and LA. We also did a sample sale in SF about a year ago and the turnout was awesome. I think the community is so receptive to new ideas, especially involving technology and sustainability, so opening the new store there just felt like the right move."

2. How did you choose the neighborhood?

"We love the diversity of the Mission District. We also found a location that has a mini parklet out front, which we'd love to revamp and make into a cool, little eco space."

3. What's inspiring your designs for current and future collections?

"I'm always inspired by the women around me and by our customers. I think this year it's a balance of listening to what girls want and also branching out into new categories and giving them something different, like Reformation Jeans which we just launched. It's our first time making denim, so we're hoping everyone really likes it."

"We have new collections out every week! Because we have our own sustainable sewing factory in LA, we have a lot of flexibility with production and are able to make more of the sold-out pieces girls are asking for. We also have some new surprises coming for spring so stay tuned."

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I Tried Reformation's San Francisco In-Store Tech And It's Actually Useful

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It all started with wet hair in London. Sustainable clothing retailer Reformation founder Yael Aflalo needed a hair dryer and everyone told her to go to Argos. "It was horribly small and gross and looked like a DMV," Aflalo told me as we sat in modern white upholstered chairs-they wouldn't stand a chance at any DMV - in the chic lounge area at the not-yet-open San Francisco store.

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BBC Earth | Six fashion materials that could help save the planet | BBC Earth

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From fast fashion to cotton, the list of ways we consume fashion that have an adverse effect on our environment and other species is a long one. BBC Earth looks at six types of material and innovations which could help in the drive for a more sustainable way of life.

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Inclusivity has also been at the heart of Harry's mission throughout his shows, visible in everything from the merch to his spectacular performances. He worked with the US education organisation GLSEN on their pride campaign, creating limited-edition rainbow versions of his "Treat People With Kindness" slogan T-shirts to raise awareness about protecting LGBTQ+ youth in schools. In San Jose, he even helped Grace, a fan who was attending her 10th Harry Styles concert, come out to her mother. Meanwhile, in London, fans echoed his message by collaborating on the Rainbow Project, where thousands of pieces of coloured paper were used to transform the O2 into a giant pride flag. During his final tour stop in LA, Harry commented on a fan's sign that read, "I'm gay and I love you." His response was, "We're all a little bit gay aren't we?"

So, what's next for Harry? In an Instagram post following his final show, he wrote, "I'm off to write some more music and I hope I'll be seeing you again very soon. Thank you to my band, the crew, and all of you for making this tour so wonderful. Treat people with kindness. Goodbye for now. I love you all." Thanks for the memories Harry - let's just hope the #HROUGHT doesn't last too long.

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Harry Styles's Tour Just Raised $1.2 Million For Charity

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Inclusivity has also been at the heart of Harry's mission throughout his shows, visible in everything from the merch to his spectacular performances. He worked with the US education organisation GLSEN on their pride campaign, creating limited-edition rainbow versions of his "Treat People With Kindness" slogan T-shirts to raise awareness about protecting LGBTQ+ youth in schools.

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Take action and join Parley missions to protect the oceans, raise awareness and help end plastic pollution

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Rise of Mcommerce: Mobile Ecommerce Shopping Stats & Trends in 2022

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With mobile searches overtaking desktop, it’s only a matter of time before mobile commerce does the same. See the emerging trends in mcommerce and mobile shopping.

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Create an account or log in to Instagram - Share what you’re into with the people who get you.

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Fashion trends come and go. It might be difficult to predict what's coming down the runway in five years, but we already have a good idea of what to expect for customer experience. Here are four trends to look for in fashion of the future.
Subscription Boxes
Instead of searching through racks of clothing or websites to find the perfect clothing item, customers of the future will crave the convenience and personalization of subscription boxes. In recent years, subscription boxes have averaged an annual growth rate of around 100%. Popular companies Stitch Fix and Rocksbox send curated items to match each customer's style on a regular basis. Customers keep and pay for the items they want and then send back what they don't want.

Subscription boxes build loyal customers while also offering them an exciting experience. The subscription box model will continue to grow over the next five years. The companies that will survive and stand out will be the ones that build personal relationships and leverage data, like ThredUp's Goody Boxes , which uses an AI algorithm that remembers each customer's preferences so that future boxes can better fit their style.
Experiential Shopping And Showrooms
Brick-and-mortar stores aren't dead, but they could soon look very different. A growing number of stores are moving away from filling their stores with inventory and are instead using physical spaces as a way to showcase items, offer extra services and build relationships with customers. Nordstrom already does this with its Nordstrom Local stores that don't sell any merchandise themselves, but instead serve as a place for customers to pick up online orders, get clothing tailored and enjoy a spa treatment.

Sixty-two percent of consumers prefer shopping at a physical store instead of online because they want to touch the merchandise and see it in person. At the same time, the main reason people shop online is for the convenience . Showrooms provide the best of both worlds--see an item in person and then order it online. Experiential shopping is also a chance for brands to provide more intimate and personalized experiences.
AR To Test New Products
Many shoppers have had bad fitting room experiences, but those days could soon be over. Within the next five years, it will likely become more mainstream to try on clothes virtually with augmented reality. About one-third of shoppers already use AR in stores, and experts predict the market could grow to be worth $130 billion by 2020 . Some stores have already adopted smart mirrors that allow customers to test different outfits without having to change their clothes. Rebecca Minkoff uses this concept at its smart stores, which include touchscreen mirrors in interactive dressing rooms. The technology is being expanded to work at home, which opens the door for online shoppers. Amazon recently filed a patent for an AR mirror that customers can use to test clothes in exotic locations, all from the comfort of their own home.

Using AR to try on clothes can help customers experiment with items they normally wouldn't try and feel confident with how an item looks on their body before they place an order. This technology capitalizes on comfort and convenience, which are priorities for modern shoppers.
AI And Personalization
AI and data make it possible for brands to know more about their customers than ever before, which is also the gateway for greater personalization. Customers are much more likely to engage with a brand that offers a personalized message. In fact, 62% of consumers expect companies to send personalized offers based on items they're already purchased. Using big data and AI, retailers will be able to create profiles for each customer that include their purchase history and preferences. This information can fuel personalized outreach and proactively allow employees to know what the customer is looking for. More companies will follow in the footsteps of which uses IBM Watson's cognitive computing technology to provide personalized winter jacket recommendations. Customers simply answer a few questions to find the perfect coat.

measures brain signals in kiosks that use neurotransmitters to gauge customers' reactions as they are shown different clothing items. The AI algorithm uses that data to recommend products. AI learns and improves with more interactions and can help create proactive, personalized experiences for customers.

Retail customer experience will continue to change and get more personalized and advanced in the next five years. These trends give us just a taste of what's to come.
Blake Morgan is a keynote speaker, customer experience futurist and the author of two books including her new "The Customer Of The Future." Stay in touch with her weekly on her newsletter.
Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist. Blake is the author of two books on customer experience. She is the author of the new book "The Customer Of The Future: 10...

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Fashion Of The Future: What Retail Customer Experience Will Look Like In 5 Years

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Fashion trends come and go. It might be difficult to predict what's coming down the runway in five years, but we already have a good idea of what to expect for customer experience. Here are four trends to look for in fashion of the future.

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Fashion shoppers want to enjoy meaningful in-store experiences, and would rather be helped by friendly and knowledgeable staff than by a robot or through a touchscreen device, new research suggests.

At the same time, suggests the Understanding and Influencing the Customer Journey for Fashion report series, two-thirds of fashion customers do not trust retailers with their personal data.

The series, from consultancy Retail Economics, and commissioned by law firm Penningtons Manches Cooper, questioned more than 2,000 UK adults in order to find out what customers thought about issues from automated services and personal data sharing through to in-store experience and data. The first report focuses on the awareness and search phase, in which retailers and brands aim to engage with customers across a range of channels and touchpoints.

It found that more than half of respondents said they would be more loyal to stores that offered a 'meaningful in-store experience'. And almost half said they did not want to be helped by a robot or to use a touchscreen device for customer services. Just 13% were keen on the idea of virtual fitting rooms - but just over a third said they would shop in a clothing store that showed extended product ranges for delivery only.

Half said they would not want to share personal data such as body shape, weight or height in order to get better product recommendations. The study suggested that some would even be willing to pay more for goods and services from a retailer that did not use data to send them promotions.

Richard Lim, chief executive of Retail Economics, said: "The pace of technological disruption in retail is not set to slow down, with disruptive technologies forecast to be engrained in the sector over the next five years. The experience economy will continue to gain traction as well, as consumers become disenchanted with the abundance of goods they have access to.

"However, the future customer journey is underpinned by data. And if retailers and brands cannot build enough trust to capture sufficient shopper information to personalise, then the deeper engagements that will help retail experiences thrive over the next decade will be undermined."

Gavin Stenton, co-head of fashion and luxury brands and commercial, IP & IT partner, at Penningtons Manches Cooper, said: "While a single cross-platform customer experience that blurs the lines between in-store, online and on-the-go is the way forward, this report highlights the risks associated with the use of and security of customer data in achieving this. Balancing the optimal mix of value over perceived intrusion will therefore become a head-scratching equation to solve."
Image: Fotolia

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Fashion shoppers want meaningful in-store experiences: study

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Fashion shoppers want to enjoy meaningful in-store experiences, and would rather be helped by friendly and knowledgeable staff than by a robot or through a touchscreen device, new research suggests. At the same time, suggests the Understanding and Influencing the Customer Journey for Fashion report series, two-thirds of fashion customers do not trust retailers with their personal data.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we're up to by signing up here.
Does the cheap pricing and poor quality of fast fashion make you uneasy? Yael Aflalo, founder of eco-friendly clothing label Reformation, had similar feelings years ago.

In 1999, the LA-based designer was working at the first brand she started, Ya-Ya, when she began learning about fashion's negative environmental impacts. (Did you know the textile industry is one of the most chemically dependent in the world?) She became disenchanted, leaving her company after witnessing terrible factory conditions in China, and dreamed of making fashion that wasn't wasteful.

Her attempts to do it right the second time around proved to be a success. In 2009, Aflalo started Reformation, which has since built an impressive following not only because of its stylish dresses and chic suiting, but also because of its green footprint. All of Reformation's pieces are made from sustainable materials, whether they be carefully selected fabric, repurposed vintage, or previously produced deadstock. Aflalo's operation is contained within her LA headquarters, where clothing is designed, manufactured, photographed, packed, and shipped thanks to a seamless and efficient business model.

Reformation isn't just for the crunchy granola, though. Celebs like Taylor Swift, Rihanna, and Miley Cyrus have made Reformation their dress maker of choice, and we even gave it a Racked Award for being the Brand That Gives Us Hope for the Future.

Below, read our chat with Aflalo about her passion for sustainable methods, why she tries on every piece her company produces, and how running a business like she does is more effective than relying on cheaper foreign labor.

What were you doing before you started Reformation?
I had my own brand for ten years, and in doing so, really learned the ins and outs of the fashion industry. I became disillusioned by some of the elements and wanted to create a company that solved a lot of the issues that I saw.

What bothered you specifically?
One was the long wait time-it just takes so long to make clothes when you're making them overseas. The second element was the sustainability issues. The fashion industry is the number two user of water in the world, after agriculture. I just couldn't stomach being a part of that any longer.

How did you become so interested in environmental issues?
I watched a lot of documentaries and read a lot. You start to have these moments where you go, "I wish I could do something about this, maybe I'll go clean the ocean." I also went to China to visit a factory, and I had this moment where I realized this is really a polluted environment. I started to dig into the impact that fashion has on the environment and I really was blown away by that. I started to make the connection: This is me, I'm making clothes and I'm a big part of this. I started to feel bad when I went shopping. I felt I actually needed to go and create a company that solves this problem, even for purely selfish reasons that I want to buy a dress and I don't want to feel bad about it.

Were you able to build off of your previous business, Ya-Ya?
The two businesses were dramatically different, so we couldn't take anything with us. We started from scratch. When I first started Reformation, we didn't have any money-we did it with whatever we had. I think the store in Los Angeles started with $7,000 or something. And then the store in New York was a little bit more expensive; I think it was $30,000 to open. I went to a vintage store for parts, and we built the store ourselves. You just make do with what you have.

How do you decide where to source your material for clothing?
When we first started, we got vintage dresses and redid them. That was the most sustainable thing that we could do. As we continued to grow, we had to modify what we were doing according to the scale that we were at. Now we're big enough that we can buy sustainable materials. We'll actually go out into the market and develop and purchase the most sustainable materials we can find.

How did you get the attention of shoppers in the beginning?
The first thing we did was open two stores, one in New York and one in LA, within a few months of each other. It was very organic. We didn't really do any marketing or press around it. It just kind of happened. I think we made really great clothes that girls wanted to wear. That's always been our guiding light: Just focus on making really awesome shit, and people will come and want to buy it.

What did your team look like then?
When we first started out, there was maybe like two people. Currently we have about 160.

Is there a certain type of girl you have in mind when you're designing?
I have this ideal customer-she's a waitress, she's made about $200 in tips tonight, and she wants a dress for a date or an event. I have this idea about how much she had to go through to earn that $200 and how much we have to go through to earn that $200 from her. She's gonna say, "I love this dress so much, it's worth that eight hours of work I put in." I try to draw that in for the girls that work here, that we have to earn that. She had to work really hard for it, so we have to work really hard too to make it worth it for her.

Is it challenging to design for customers on both coasts?
I was around before the internet, so I believe that the internet changed fashion. Now everybody can see what everybody's wearing all around the world, and it's made fashion a little more flat. People dress very, very similarly. Obviously there are weather constraints and that plays a part in it, but aside from that, I feel like there are actually more similarities than there are differences.

What inspired you to focus on women's suiting?
For us, we really try to look for the gap. I'd been searching for a suit for years and could never find one for under $3,000. I felt that constituted a reason to try it. We try to make things that you can't find, not things that everybody else is making. I can't even tell you how many times I've tried on suits and been like, "Uhhh?" I always wanted that white Bianca Jagger suit to wear and was never able to find it.

How focused are you on maintaining a lifestyle image for the brand?
I don't want to be negative, but how I think about it is I don't make things about collections. We make things because they're good on their own, and they don't really need to be tied to something to make them good or part of a cohesive story. I feel like that takes it away from the point of what you're trying to do. We don't mess around with that kind of stuff. We're not trying to make a story, we're just trying to make clothes. I trust that my customer knows how to make her own story. Somebody will say, "Can you give me the inspiration for your collection?" And they will be like, "I was inspired by Amish brides," and you're like, "What?!" My point is, I don't think the story is relevant. I'm inspired by clothes I want to wear, very simple and to the point.

What other factors have been integral to Reformation's success?
I think fit is the most important thing, hands down. We spend a lot of time on fittings. I personally try on every single thing that we make at least two or three times, and then we have at least two or three other people also try it on. We're relentless in that pursuit. A lot of times something might be fashionable, but it's now flattering. We don't even go there.

Are you ever tempted to use cheaper fabrics or source labor abroad?
I think the heart of sustainability is the fact that if you use fewer resources, things will be less expensive. It doesn't always work out that way in real life, but a lot of times it does. For example, we could use cheaper shipping boxes, but we invested in more expensive boxes that can be reused. You have to be more thoughtful about it, and I find that it balances itself out. We use this model to make decisions about everything from the pens we use to the coats we design. Our supply chain of materials is a dramatic improvement on the status quo; a typical T-shirt will use 200 gallons of water to make, while a Reformation tee will use six.

What advice would you give to someone interested in starting their own clothing line?
If you're not good at math and business, find somebody that is because you will not succeed without that skill set. Also, don't do things just because everybody else does them. Think it through, make sure it feels right. A lot of people like do things just because that's the way everybody else does them, and that's definitely not the way to be successful. The people that are successful are people that go out on their own.
[Racked's Ladies Who Launch series]

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Reformation Founder Yael Aflalo on Sustainable Fashion and Starting Over

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Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we're up to by signing up here.

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Hello guys and welcome back!

I think one of the main ways to learn about how to change your wardrobe into sustainability is to get educated. These days, there are so many brands out there who are doing amazing things! Once in a while, we will be introducing a new brand to you while describing their history, style and why we love them so much. Today, we will be focusing on Reformation which, as far as ethical fashion is concerned, is probably where you'll want to start! I would say Reformation might be the most well-known and popular conscious fashion brand out there these days.

History:

The brand started in 2009 and was created by Yael Aflalo a former model and SoCal native. At first, it started with only repurposing vintage garments and clothing found at flea markets, customizing them, and selling them. But in 2012, Reformation relaunched and became something much bigger. They turned into a 100% eco-friendly brand with a factory downtown Los Angeles. As well as the factory, they also have two stores in NYC and one in LA. By 2014, it had made more than $25 million in revenue and gained traction from eco-minded celebrities. Those include Taylor Swift, Rihanna and investor, Karlie Kloss.

Why we love them:

Now, they do not hesitate to showcase on their website how they produce their collections in their factory downtown. The limited-edition ones that is. For the rest, they make sure their clothing and accessories are manufactured by factories in the US. If they're not, they will be made abroad using sustainable garments and processes.

As well as paying attention to the way their clothes are made and who makes them, they also make sure they minimize their waste, energy footprint and water too. If you are slightly skeptical and want to have more information on how they manage that and calculate it, you can check out their website and see for yourself, the results are quite impressive!

If all of that didn't already make you fall in love with the brand, they also want to make sure you know who made your clothes and are paying attention to how their workers are treated, paid and the benefits they get. So much so that they offer to take people on factory tours every first Friday of the month! You can check out their work for yourselves, maybe talk to some employees and really get a feel of why they love their work and company so much. If that is something that would be of interest to you, you can inquire a tour by doing so here.

They also took the time to make short videos about some of the employees working in their factory that you can find on the same page. This probably makes them even more lovable than they already are!

Those are the many reasons why here, at Native Styling, we love Reformation so much. But we wouldn't be us if we weren't also talking about the amazing style they showcase throughout every collection they put out!

Style:

They have a very feminine, very Southern Californian vibe to them, with a pinch of boho, a dash of casual and a whole lot of pieces that are comfortable, versatile and will last you forever! Let's show you how it's done!

So here are our 5 favorite pieces from their brand new collection. Those pieces are currently available in stores and on their website!
Bellflower Dress - $218 Pippa Top - $128 Harley Jean - $148 Shearling Jacket - $178
Doen Lulu Sweater - $248
What did you think of the brand? Would you ever purchase some of their pieces? Or maybe you already have? Leave a comment below to let us know!

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Hello and welcome back! Today, we will be introducing a new weekly series called Brand Spotlight, sharing our favorite conscious brands around! The focus of the week will be the brand Reformation. Check it out here if you want more information on why we love this brand and our favorite pieces!

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LOS ANGELES, United States - Reformation, the direct-to-consumer brand known for its influential aesthetic as well as its commitment to sustainable manufacturing, has raised a $25 million Series B funding round led by Stripes Group with participation from 14W and Imaginary Ventures, the new venture capital firm founded by Natalie Massenet and .

Founded in 2009 by chief executive Yael Aflalo, who remains the majority shareholder, Reformation became a vertically integrated direct-to-consumer business in 2012. It has since grown steadily - an average of 60 percent year-over-year since 2014 - with an estimated revenue of just over $100 million in 2017. It raised $12 million in a Series A round in 2015. Today, 80 percent of sales come through the website.

Aflalo plans to use the funding to add more physical retail stores where shoppers can browse samples and select what they want to try on through touchscreen monitors. Product is then brought by sales associates directly to individual dressing rooms, which are larger and more numerous, through double-sided wardrobes. Since adopting this new concept in all but two of its current retail outposts, "we definitely have happier customers," says Aflalo. According to the executive, net promoter scores, a tool for measuring customer loyalty, are "meaningfully higher" in the new-format stores than in the remaining traditional stores.

The company opened five new-format stores this year in Los Angeles, Dallas, New York and San Francisco and two pop-ups in Miami and the Hamptons and is planning a similar pace for 2018 in major US cities. "With every few stores, we are going to be introducing new features and new operations," she says. (As of now, she does not have plans to convert the first two New York stores in the Lower East Side and Soho to the new format because they are important revenue drivers and it would require shutting them down for at least a month to renovate.)

The new store formats are also the foundation of a cross-channel approach to sales growth. "One of our big initiatives for next year is 'buy anything anywhere,'" she says. "And that requires a pretty strong technical foundation." The biggest hurdle is ensuring each store has not only highly accurate inventory, but that the inventory system accounts for where an item is in the store. A piece in the dressing room or that a client is preparing to purchase, for example, can't be available to buy online.

Imaginary Ventures' Brown says Aflalo has proven she can build retail experiences that make shoppers want to come into the store, and are profitable with both new and existing customers. "If you look in the world of physical retail today, there are not a lot of companies that can successfully say that," he says. "She's recognised the [retail] evolution and she builds stores that allow the actual experience of trying on product to be a little more unique.... In a way, the back of house has become the front of house." And Reformation's release frequency - new product is available as often as every week - keeps customers engaged.

Brown met Aflalo about five years ago when he was a partner at venture capital firm 14W, which invested in a seed round in 2014 and the Series A in 2015, and then joined Reformation's board. Imaginary Ventures launched earlier this year and is still actively raising funds, but has already invested in HUM Nutrition, Daily Harvest and Heist Tights.

Reformation's stores are also important for customer acquisition, which can be particularly challenging for direct-to-consumer brands that operate solely in the vast sea of e-commerce where it is because increasingly expensive to target consumers through paid marketing. "A customer that shops online and retail is twice as valuable as a customer that shops only online," says Aflalo. "We are a little bit unique in the sense that the lion's share of our customer acquisition is organic." Ten percent of Reformation's new customers come through paid channels, and while she expects that number to increase in 2018, she says she wants it to remain a significant minority.

A customer that shops online and retail is twice as valuable as a customer that shops only online.

In addition to expanding the store count, Aflalo plans to use the funding to continue to invest in manufacturing and sustainability programs at the brand's Los Angeles factory, where 60 percent of garments are produced. "We have a bigger team there now, researching and investing in new fibers and expanding our compliance processes, making sure we have visibility into where the materials are from," she says.

Reformation's commitment to sustainability is foundational to the brand's identity. "It would be a mistake for us at Imaginary to not understand that consumers today have different expectations in terms of how products are sourced and how they are made," says Brown.

The brand's clear values and messaging, combined with a distinctive aesthetic, are especially important in an era where private labels account for 20 percent of the US apparel market, together representing more sales than any single brand, according to research firm NPD. Data-aggregating e-retailers, particularly Amazon, and fast-fashion retailers, such as , can undercut Reformation's growth. (Reformation's prices range across categories from about $30 to $600.)

But Brown says that the"audience of people that are in a position to stay with the brand, to get excited by the brand and to grow with the brand - ultimately, irrespective of what Amazon is doing - is a massive, massive market opportunity."

Brown remembers comments made during Reformation's earliest stages that it was too cool to be able to scale. "Yael has proven that she can continue to grow and cultivate a brand that people have an association with, that is somewhat limited in terms of distribution, that is constantly reinventing itself from a product angle, but one that can scale and become a meaningfully sized business," he says. "It's definitely cult and it's definitely cool, but it's not niche."
Editor's Note: A previous version of this article misstated that 14W and Imaginary Ventures lead the Series B funding round. This is incorrect. Stripes Group led and 14W and Imaginary Ventures participated. Related Articles: The Top 10 Venture-Backed Fashion Startups How BFF Marketing Became the M.O. for Women's Direct-to-Consumer Brands

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Reformation Raises $25 Million to Fuel Brick-and-Mortar Growth

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LOS ANGELES, United States - Reformation, the direct-to-consumer brand known for its influential aesthetic as well as its commitment to sustainable manufacturing, has raised a $25 million Series B funding round led by Stripes Group with participation from 14W and Imaginary Ventures, the new venture capital firm founded by Natalie Massenet and .

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
LOS ANGELES, United States - Reformation, the direct-to-consumer brand known for its influential aesthetic as well as its commitment to sustainable manufacturing, has raised a $25 million Series B funding round led by Stripes Group with participation from 14W and Imaginary Ventures, the new venture capital firm founded by Natalie Massenet and .

Founded in 2009 by chief executive Yael Aflalo, who remains the majority shareholder, Reformation became a vertically integrated direct-to-consumer business in 2012. It has since grown steadily - an average of 60 percent year-over-year since 2014 - with an estimated revenue of just over $100 million in 2017. It raised $12 million in a Series A round in 2015. Today, 80 percent of sales come through the website.

Aflalo plans to use the funding to add more physical retail stores where shoppers can browse samples and select what they want to try on through touchscreen monitors. Product is then brought by sales associates directly to individual dressing rooms, which are larger and more numerous, through double-sided wardrobes. Since adopting this new concept in all but two of its current retail outposts, "we definitely have happier customers," says Aflalo. According to the executive, net promoter scores, a tool for measuring customer loyalty, are "meaningfully higher" in the new-format stores than in the remaining traditional stores.

The company opened five new-format stores this year in Los Angeles, Dallas, New York and San Francisco and two pop-ups in Miami and the Hamptons and is planning a similar pace for 2018 in major US cities. "With every few stores, we are going to be introducing new features and new operations," she says. (As of now, she does not have plans to convert the first two New York stores in the Lower East Side and Soho to the new format because they are important revenue drivers and it would require shutting them down for at least a month to renovate.)

The new store formats are also the foundation of a cross-channel approach to sales growth. "One of our big initiatives for next year is 'buy anything anywhere,'" she says. "And that requires a pretty strong technical foundation." The biggest hurdle is ensuring each store has not only highly accurate inventory, but that the inventory system accounts for where an item is in the store. A piece in the dressing room or that a client is preparing to purchase, for example, can't be available to buy online.

Imaginary Ventures' Brown says Aflalo has proven she can build retail experiences that make shoppers want to come into the store, and are profitable with both new and existing customers. "If you look in the world of physical retail today, there are not a lot of companies that can successfully say that," he says. "She's recognised the [retail] evolution and she builds stores that allow the actual experience of trying on product to be a little more unique.... In a way, the back of house has become the front of house." And Reformation's release frequency - new product is available as often as every week - keeps customers engaged.

Brown met Aflalo about five years ago when he was a partner at venture capital firm 14W, which invested in a seed round in 2014 and the Series A in 2015, and then joined Reformation's board. Imaginary Ventures launched earlier this year and is still actively raising funds, but has already invested in HUM Nutrition, Daily Harvest and Heist Tights.

Reformation's stores are also important for customer acquisition, which can be particularly challenging for direct-to-consumer brands that operate solely in the vast sea of e-commerce where it is because increasingly expensive to target consumers through paid marketing. "A customer that shops online and retail is twice as valuable as a customer that shops only online," says Aflalo. "We are a little bit unique in the sense that the lion's share of our customer acquisition is organic." Ten percent of Reformation's new customers come through paid channels, and while she expects that number to increase in 2018, she says she wants it to remain a significant minority.

A customer that shops online and retail is twice as valuable as a customer that shops only online.

In addition to expanding the store count, Aflalo plans to use the funding to continue to invest in manufacturing and sustainability programs at the brand's Los Angeles factory, where 60 percent of garments are produced. "We have a bigger team there now, researching and investing in new fibers and expanding our compliance processes, making sure we have visibility into where the materials are from," she says.

Reformation's commitment to sustainability is foundational to the brand's identity. "It would be a mistake for us at Imaginary to not understand that consumers today have different expectations in terms of how products are sourced and how they are made," says Brown.

The brand's clear values and messaging, combined with a distinctive aesthetic, are especially important in an era where private labels account for 20 percent of the US apparel market, together representing more sales than any single brand, according to research firm NPD. Data-aggregating e-retailers, particularly Amazon, and fast-fashion retailers, such as , can undercut Reformation's growth. (Reformation's prices range across categories from about $30 to $600.)

But Brown says that the"audience of people that are in a position to stay with the brand, to get excited by the brand and to grow with the brand - ultimately, irrespective of what Amazon is doing - is a massive, massive market opportunity."

Brown remembers comments made during Reformation's earliest stages that it was too cool to be able to scale. "Yael has proven that she can continue to grow and cultivate a brand that people have an association with, that is somewhat limited in terms of distribution, that is constantly reinventing itself from a product angle, but one that can scale and become a meaningfully sized business," he says. "It's definitely cult and it's definitely cool, but it's not niche."
Editor's Note: A previous version of this article misstated that 14W and Imaginary Ventures lead the Series B funding round. This is incorrect. Stripes Group led and 14W and Imaginary Ventures participated. Related Articles: The Top 10 Venture-Backed Fashion Startups How BFF Marketing Became the M.O. for Women's Direct-to-Consumer Brands

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Reformation Raises $25 Million to Fuel Brick-and-Mortar Growth

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
LOS ANGELES, United States - Reformation, the direct-to-consumer brand known for its influential aesthetic as well as its commitment to sustainable manufacturing, has raised a $25 million Series B funding round led by Stripes Group with participation from 14W and Imaginary Ventures, the new venture capital firm founded by Natalie Massenet and .

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
LOS ANGELES, United States - Reformation, the direct-to-consumer brand known for its influential aesthetic as well as its commitment to sustainable manufacturing, has raised a $25 million Series B funding round led by Stripes Group with participation from 14W and Imaginary Ventures, the new venture capital firm founded by Natalie Massenet and .

Founded in 2009 by chief executive Yael Aflalo, who remains the majority shareholder, Reformation became a vertically integrated direct-to-consumer business in 2012. It has since grown steadily - an average of 60 percent year-over-year since 2014 - with an estimated revenue of just over $100 million in 2017. It raised $12 million in a Series A round in 2015. Today, 80 percent of sales come through the website.

Aflalo plans to use the funding to add more physical retail stores where shoppers can browse samples and select what they want to try on through touchscreen monitors. Product is then brought by sales associates directly to individual dressing rooms, which are larger and more numerous, through double-sided wardrobes. Since adopting this new concept in all but two of its current retail outposts, "we definitely have happier customers," says Aflalo. According to the executive, net promoter scores, a tool for measuring customer loyalty, are "meaningfully higher" in the new-format stores than in the remaining traditional stores.

The company opened five new-format stores this year in Los Angeles, Dallas, New York and San Francisco and two pop-ups in Miami and the Hamptons and is planning a similar pace for 2018 in major US cities. "With every few stores, we are going to be introducing new features and new operations," she says. (As of now, she does not have plans to convert the first two New York stores in the Lower East Side and Soho to the new format because they are important revenue drivers and it would require shutting them down for at least a month to renovate.)

The new store formats are also the foundation of a cross-channel approach to sales growth. "One of our big initiatives for next year is 'buy anything anywhere,'" she says. "And that requires a pretty strong technical foundation." The biggest hurdle is ensuring each store has not only highly accurate inventory, but that the inventory system accounts for where an item is in the store. A piece in the dressing room or that a client is preparing to purchase, for example, can't be available to buy online.

Imaginary Ventures' Brown says Aflalo has proven she can build retail experiences that make shoppers want to come into the store, and are profitable with both new and existing customers. "If you look in the world of physical retail today, there are not a lot of companies that can successfully say that," he says. "She's recognised the [retail] evolution and she builds stores that allow the actual experience of trying on product to be a little more unique.... In a way, the back of house has become the front of house." And Reformation's release frequency - new product is available as often as every week - keeps customers engaged.

Brown met Aflalo about five years ago when he was a partner at venture capital firm 14W, which invested in a seed round in 2014 and the Series A in 2015, and then joined Reformation's board. Imaginary Ventures launched earlier this year and is still actively raising funds, but has already invested in HUM Nutrition, Daily Harvest and Heist Tights.

Reformation's stores are also important for customer acquisition, which can be particularly challenging for direct-to-consumer brands that operate solely in the vast sea of e-commerce where it is because increasingly expensive to target consumers through paid marketing. "A customer that shops online and retail is twice as valuable as a customer that shops only online," says Aflalo. "We are a little bit unique in the sense that the lion's share of our customer acquisition is organic." Ten percent of Reformation's new customers come through paid channels, and while she expects that number to increase in 2018, she says she wants it to remain a significant minority.

A customer that shops online and retail is twice as valuable as a customer that shops only online.

In addition to expanding the store count, Aflalo plans to use the funding to continue to invest in manufacturing and sustainability programs at the brand's Los Angeles factory, where 60 percent of garments are produced. "We have a bigger team there now, researching and investing in new fibers and expanding our compliance processes, making sure we have visibility into where the materials are from," she says.

Reformation's commitment to sustainability is foundational to the brand's identity. "It would be a mistake for us at Imaginary to not understand that consumers today have different expectations in terms of how products are sourced and how they are made," says Brown.

The brand's clear values and messaging, combined with a distinctive aesthetic, are especially important in an era where private labels account for 20 percent of the US apparel market, together representing more sales than any single brand, according to research firm NPD. Data-aggregating e-retailers, particularly Amazon, and fast-fashion retailers, such as , can undercut Reformation's growth. (Reformation's prices range across categories from about $30 to $600.)

But Brown says that the"audience of people that are in a position to stay with the brand, to get excited by the brand and to grow with the brand - ultimately, irrespective of what Amazon is doing - is a massive, massive market opportunity."

Brown remembers comments made during Reformation's earliest stages that it was too cool to be able to scale. "Yael has proven that she can continue to grow and cultivate a brand that people have an association with, that is somewhat limited in terms of distribution, that is constantly reinventing itself from a product angle, but one that can scale and become a meaningfully sized business," he says. "It's definitely cult and it's definitely cool, but it's not niche."
Editor's Note: A previous version of this article misstated that 14W and Imaginary Ventures lead the Series B funding round. This is incorrect. Stripes Group led and 14W and Imaginary Ventures participated. Related Articles: The Top 10 Venture-Backed Fashion Startups How BFF Marketing Became the M.O. for Women's Direct-to-Consumer Brands

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Reformation Raises $25 Million to Fuel Brick-and-Mortar Growth

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LOS ANGELES, United States - Reformation, the direct-to-consumer brand known for its influential aesthetic as well as its commitment to sustainable manufacturing, has raised a $25 million Series B funding round led by Stripes Group with participation from 14W and Imaginary Ventures, the new venture capital firm founded by Natalie Massenet and .

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Brand overview
Influencer
Brand History
Research
Swot Pestle
Parley
Materials

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7 p's
promotional mix
website
marketing positing map
concept ideas

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Survey
Survey Results
Cad's
Video

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Final designs
Website
sustainable development goals
the 5 m's

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Raci matrik
A/B Wireframes and testing
The lean UX
Behavioural model
comp shop
photoshop products

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Business objectives
Pen portrait
Empathy map
Audience segmentation
Customer journey map

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Patagonia
Circular Economy
Ansoff
Influencers
Competitive rubix
launch event

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UX Competitor analysis
wireframe
website process
product page
search behaviour

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social media audit
social media stratergy
kpis
hashtag
mock up social ads
email marketing message
sms and mms

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The rule of thirds
content marketing breif
social media campaign
conclusion

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Generation Y is the first generation in recorded history which is projected to be worse off than those which came before.
This week, BBC Scotland is looking at the lives of millennials and how they stack up next to the experiences of their parents and grandparents.

But who are the millennials?

In simple terms, Generation Y is the latest in a series of demographic cohorts which have been given slightly odd names in a bid to define them as a collective cultural group.

First there were the Baby Boomers, those born during a spike in the birth rate following the Second World War through to the early to mid 1960s.

The next demographic bump was Generation X, those born from the early to mid 60s through to the start of the 1980s; the "MTV generation".

Then we come to Generation Y, the millennials. Born from the early 80s through to the turn of the Millennium, this is a cohort which largely came of age at the outset of a global financial crisis, but also amid a vast acceleration in digital technology.

Incidentally the following generation, those born since the millennium, has in turn been dubbed Generation Z: the "digital natives" who have no recollection of a world without smart devices and broadband internet.

Scotland's National Records keep track of the country's population. They record more than 1.4m Scots residents who were born between 1980 and 2000, with slightly more women than men among them (a trend also reflected across the populace as a whole).

Starting from early life, Generation Y are more likely to stay on in full-time or further education than those who went before; the number of graduates more than doubled between 1984 and 2013.

Older generations were more likely to leave school at an earlier age, sometimes with no qualifications - something which is now very rare.

Only about 6% of 16 to 34-year-olds in Scotland have no qualifications at all; the figure for those aged 35 to 64 is more than double that, and for those over 65 it doubles again to more than a third. However those over-65s are much more likely to have other, non-academic qualifications.

Jobs market

After education, Generation Y are heading into an unpredictable jobs market. The employment rate is good, but many are in part-time work or self-employed, and they have faced the largest falls in real average earning in the wake of the 2008 recession.

According to the most recent set of labour market statistics, just over 71% of 16 to 34-year-olds are in employment, 5.7% are unemployed and 24.7% are economically inactive - many of them students or carers.

For those aged 35 to 64, the same figures are just over 77% employed, 2.9% unemployed, and 20.6% inactive.

But how good is the work?

Millennials in their 20s are 25% more likely to work part-time than members of Generation X were when they were at the same age. During their 20s, they are projected to earn £8,000 less than their GenX equivalents.

Much has been made of zero-hours contracts, a form of employment which has grown more common over the past decade; between 2003 and 2005 they sat at 0.4% of all contracts, UK-wide, but increased to 2.8% by the end of 2016.

Those on zero-hours contracts, where employers are not obliged to provide any minimum hours, are often young. According to labour market statistics released in May, a third of people on these casual contracts are aged 16 to 24.

Some people like the flexibility offered by a zero-hours contract, under which workers are not obliged to actually accept any work offered. But others see them as being exploitative and lacking in job and income security.

In Scotland, the most recent statistics list 2.2% of workers as being on zero-hours contracts, a figure which is the lowest on the UK mainland. The UK-wide figure rose from 2.5% to 2.8% in 2016, driven mainly by an increase in England from 2.6% to 3%.

Wages

People on zero-hours contracts are still paid the minimum wage, but the number of hours they work can vary to a large degree. The proportion of people in part-time or casual employment contributes to a significant disparity in average overall pay between generations.

In 2016, the median pay of Scots aged 18 to 21 was £200 a week. Those aged 22 to 29, who were more likely to be in full-time work, were paid £387 a week, and those aged 30 to 39, and thus more experienced in the labour market, £482.

The peak median weekly wage was for those aged between 40 and 49, at £494. Thereafter the figure falls back, with those aged 50 to 59 earning a median £470 per week.

A tougher employment scene makes it hard to get on the housing ladder - research by the House of Commons Library found that 59% of households led by a millennial are renting, with 38% owning their own home - whereas 20 years ago young people were more likely to own than rent.

There has also been a slight increase in the proportion of 25- to 34-year-olds who are still living with their parents - this is the case for 14% of millennials UK-wide.

Generation Y is collectively a more diverse and socially liberal grouping than those who were born earlier; north of the border just under three-quarters of 16- to 34-year-olds identify as white Scottish, compared to over 80% of the older population.

However, they are also less likely to make their voice heard at the ballot box.

In the 2015 election, two-thirds of baby boomers voters turned out on polling day, compared to 56% of generation X and 46% of voting-age millennials.

This shifted somewhat in the snap election of 2017, when young people turned out in greater numbers - but they were still dwarfed by the proportions of older generations turning out.

YouGov found that 57% of teenage voters turned out in June, and 59% of those aged 20 to 24 - compared with 71% of those in the 50 to 59 bracket, 77% in the 60 to 69 cohort and a whopping 84% of those over 70.

Settling down

Those in Generation Y are far more likely to be single than those amid older generations.

Almost 80% of Scots aged 16 to 34 have never been married, compared to only about a sixth of those older.

This is not just because they have had less lifespan in which to meet a partner and settle down - people are getting married later and later in life.

In 1980, the average age at which people in Scotland first got married was 24.5 for men and 22.6 for women. By 2000 these figures were 30.5 and 28.6 respectively; in 2016 they were 33.9 and 32.2.

And less people are getting married now, in total; in 1980 there were 38,500 marriages in Scotland. By 2000 it was 30,367, and in 2016 it was 29,229.

When millennials do get married, its less likely to be in a church; Generation Y is also less religious than those which came before it.

Almost two-thirds of 16- to 34-year-olds in Scotland say they have no religion at all, far higher than proportion of those older; less than a third of those over 65 gave this answer.

These broad trends are instructive in their own way, but at the end of the day everyone has their own unique experience. BBC Scotland will be covering the lives of Generation Y in Scotland all this week.

Send in your comments and questions via social media using #BBCGenY or to newsonlinescotland@bbc.co.uk.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

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Meet the millennials: Who are Generation Y?

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Generation Y is the first generation in recorded history projected to be worse off than those which came before.

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Millennials may be at the center of paying their way through the student debt crisis, but over the next few decades this generation will be entering its prime spending years - with an inheritance totaling $30 trillion from baby boomers and Generation X on the way.

After analyzing trends across multiple industries, looking at case studies, sales fads and other factors, CB Insights nailed down 12 industries that anticipate the biggest influx from millennials' new spending power. These are industries that are restructuring to focus on Generation Y, finding ways to be more sustainable, affordable, flexible and tech-savvy.

Though CB Insights tells CNBC Make It that this list isn't all-encompassing - there are certainly more industries benefiting from millennials - these are the 12 they expect to have a millennial spending boom:

In 2018, millennials made up 56% of all new campers, an increase from 51% in 2017, CB Insights found, based on data from Kampgrounds of America.

Part of the reason is that camping is a budget-friendly family adventure, especially if you have kids. The rise of online booking platforms like Airbnb, Hipcamp and Campsy have made it easy for users to book unique experiences in yurts and treehouses, rather than having to pitch a tent. The rise of "glamping" has also given the industry a boost: Almost 60% of the 1.4 million households who first camped in 2018 preferred cabins, recreational vehicles and "glamping" to tents, CB Insights says.

Millennials care about their exercise. The generation spends nearly $7 billion annually on gym memberships - double the amount Gen Xers and boomers spend - and 76% report exercising at least once a week, compared to 70% of Gen Xers and 64% of baby boomers, according to the report.

The biggest gainers from this health trend are on different ends of the spectrum: budget gyms and boutique studios. Budget gyms, such as Planet Fitness, provide a wide range of amenities at a much lower cost than traditional gym memberships, while pricier boutique studios like SoulCycle offer community-driven classes that millennials view as social activities.

Affordable travel and bespoke experiences are sending millennials to see the world. A 2016 survey by the Financial Times found that millennials prioritize short-term spending over long-term spending, going on holiday rather than saving their money because they "feel financially doomed."

This year, millennials are prioritizing their wanderlust more than previous generations, placing a big emphasis on accommodations that are authentic and local to the destinations they visit, checking into Airbnb and VRBO rather than hotels. And instead of seeing the standard tourist attractions, millennials would rather pay for something experiential, such as music festivals and culinary events.

For the budget conscious, price-comparison apps like Hopper and HotelTonight have made it easier for millennial travelers to spot a good deal - CB Insights found that 85% of millennial travelers check multiple sites before making a commitment - and thanks to social media, there are endless customer recommendations to help consumers plan.

Fast casual dining restaurants like Chipotle, Shake Shack and Blaze Pizza are satisfying millennials' appetites andcatering to their busy lives with mobile ordering and in-store pickup. A Technomic research study cited by CB Insights found that almost 40% of millennials eat meals on the go.

According to CB Insights, millennials today make up 44% of the demand for coffee in the U.S. But it isn't just your old cup of Joe they crave - canned cold brew, nitrogen-infused beverages and fair-trade brands are garnering a lot of attention from those who prefer the convenience, the different flavors and the sustainability newer brands provide.

The frozen food aisle is being revitalized by freshly-prepared meals, like Frozen Foodies' cryogenically frozen meals prepared by professional chefs and Buttermilk's reheatable pre-made Indian meals. As gourmet frozen foods offer healthier options and better quality than frozen foods once did, they are attracting younger consumers.

"In 2018, the total volume of frozen foods sold in the U.S. increased for the first time in five years, driven largely by millennials and consumers with children," reports CB Insights.

Frozen plant-based brands like Gardein and Daiya are helping to feed the 52% of millennials who prefer organic food and the 40% on a plant-based diet.

Low-calorie carbonated beverages, such as seltzers and flavored sparkling waters, are so popular among millennials' that Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have introduced seltzer products of their own.

According to CB Insights, "Venture capitalists invested more than $152 million in seltzer and sparkling water companies in 2018 alone - more than the sum invested in 2016 and 2017 combined." Newer brands like Recess, a CBD-infused seltzer, and White Claw, flavored alcoholic seltzers with only 100 calories, are reinventing the soda industry for the younger generation's taste buds.

Citing data from from the National Gardening Association, CB Insights reports that annually, "The average household spend on indoor plants has increased, growing from about $30 in 2016 to nearly $50 in 2018."

Additionally, plant sales represent a $1.7 billion market. Millennials in urban areas have jumped on the holistic wellness trend that plants promote, by using houseplants to spruce up their small-scale apartments. Direct-to-consumer plant brands, as well as low-cost subscription services, make it easier to purchase plants online, and social media offers plant decor inspiration - the greenery in millennials' apartments offering the perfect Instagram prop or backdrop.

As people become more conscious of the ingredients in their products, niche cosmetic brands are popping up to inform a curious audience. Between 2010 and 2015, smaller brands grew their market share by 5%, while the 10 major cosmetics brands lost 6% market share, according to a Deloitte study referenced by CB Insights.

Natural skincare brands are paving their way, too. "Launches of vegan beauty products increased by 175% between 2013 and 2018," according to Mintel's global new products database.

"Millennials are [three times] more likely than previous generations to research new brands and products using social media, and 37% more likely to trust a brand after coming across a sponsored post about it," says CB Insights.

It's said that millennials are killing the car industry, but in reality, they are helping it stay in drive. According to CB Insights, in the first quarter of 2018, "Millennials were responsible for all new-vehicle sales growth in the U.S." They prefer smaller, more efficient and more affordable sedans than older generations who like luxury cars, like high-end sedans and SUVs.

CB Insights references a 2019 survey that found that 86% of younger millennials and Gen Z said that when they buy a car, they would consider a sedan. According to the report, millennials prefer foreign-made, mid-range cars with Japanese automakers Honda, Nissan and Toyota making up the top three car brands millennials buy.

Millennials prefer city living and are "21% more likely to buy their homes near city centers than Gen Xers," says a Journal of Regional Science study, mentioned by CB Insights. Affordable, efficient and eco-friendly transit is an important factor for urban millennials, who use Uber and Lyft ride-hailing services, use bicycle-share programs, and travel via Bird and Lime electric scooters. CB Insights notes that the entire micromobility industry is predicted to be worth up to $300 billion by 2030.

Millennials hold the most student loan debt of any generation, and this cash-strapped cohort is taking interest in understanding their finances, and turning to the web and personal finance apps to help them.

Financial technology companies are creating easy-to-use apps to help this younger generation learn to budget, save, invest and spend their money. Mobile banking and personal budgeting apps, such as Revolut and Qapital are most popular with millennials, with personal budgeting apps having a user base that's 70% millennials, reports CB Insights.

Apps also save millennials from having to visit a physical bank. According to business management consultant CG42's 2018 retail banking study cited by CB Insights, over the next year alone, the 10 largest banks are predicted to lose more than $340 billion in deposits to digital-first competitors.
Don't miss: Charmin's new 'Forever Roll' is a massive roll of toilet paper targeted at millennial customers

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Seltzer, houseplants, skincare - These 12 industries are reinventing themselves to win over millennials

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Millennials have allegedly 'killed' everything from credit cards to home-cooked meals, but with an inheritance of $30 trillion from previous generations coming into play over the next few decades, they are entering their prime spending years - and a handful of industries are suiting up to make a profit.

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From baby boomers to Gen X to millennials, savvy brands have largely been able to craft their messaging to appeal to a wide variety of generations that have become viable consumers over the years. However, because of their young age, one cohort that is often overlooked altogether when it comes to marketing strategies is Generation Z, the age group following millennials.

While many brands have written off Gen Z as little more than kids who are addicted to their smartphones, according to the National Retail Federation , Gen Z holds a whopping $44 billion in buying power. With so much pull in the marketplace, companies that cater to these teens could find themselves stepping into an opportunity that could catapult their brand to new heights. Keeping Gen Z top of mind while creating advertising campaigns might very well give companies the competitive edge they're looking for.

Let's take a look at 5 effective ways to win over Gen Z consumers.
Tailor Your Messaging For Mobile And Desktop
Like any other target market, one way to appeal to Gen Z is to meet them where they already spend their time: online. According to IBM , 66% of Gen Z frequently uses more than one device at the same time. Because of this, all of the branded content you put out into the world ,  from the layout of your website to your Instagram photos to blog posts , must be optimized for a seamless customer experience across all devices.

This trend is taking place across the board, and can be illustrated by the percentage of Americans who own a smartphone increasing from 35% in 2011 to 77% today . One look at all the technological advances being made makes it clear this momentum is unlikely to slow down anytime soon.
Generation Z Prefers Personalization
Because they have grown up exiting out of pop-up ads and being bombarded by brands at nearly every stage of their day, it does not come as a surprise that Gen Z prefers personalized experiences. Whether that be a daily tailor-made playlist like Spotify provides, or emails and advertisements for products the viewer recently visited, leveraging the power of customized experiences can be a game-changer for your business.

"The younger market of clients are excited to have the freedom to create their own jewelry and not only become part of the process but a part of the brand with limitless possibilities of self expression," says Galith Saada, Founder of Magal Jewelry, a direct-to-consumer jewelry brand that is creating personalized customer experiences in an industry not historically targeted towards Generation Z. The company enables customers to completely customize jewelry, whether they want to add an additional pendant, swap colors or something else entirely. By taking an industry that traditionally limits itself into a one-size-fits-all approach, Magal is beginning to attract the attention of the younger generation.
Quality Over Everything
It's important to remember that Generation Z has grown up with the internet, meaning they are accustomed to having nearly limitless buying options. Today, companies can set up shop with nothing more than a website, significantly lowering the barrier to entry for aspiring entrepreneurs. This has culminated in Generation Z having an unprecedented number of choices to pick from, no matter what they are searching for.

This very well could be the reason 66% of Generation Z opts to buy from brands that sell high quality products versus mid to lower quality items. Gen Z wants their dollars to go further, especially since their purchases might be limited given not many who make up the generation have full-time income yet.

Due to the sheer number of competitors in the marketplace, it's crucial to make sure all aspects of your business you can control are of the utmost quality, from customer service to the product itself.
Create An In-Store And Online Shopping Experience
It's interesting to note that 67% of Gen Z prefers to make purchases in brick-and-mortar stores versus buying online. While this stat may initially seem counter-intuitive, it will likely change as the generation grows older and gains access to secure credit cards to enable frictionless online buying. This is especially probable given that within the older segment of this generation (19 to 21 years of age), 84% prefer to shop online.

Putting energy and attention into creating a strong, secure and seamless omnichannel shopping experience is key. To optimize for brick-and-mortar sales, consider experimenting with Snapchat's Snap to Store advertising feature, the only social media platform that allows marketers to measure whether their ad campaigns actually drive users to store locations.

Additionally, creating in-store experiences that are highly shareable across social media increases foot traffic. For some inspiration, consider creating a "selfie station" or photo booth that would entice customers to share to social media. You can also encourage customers to share their in-store experience across social by creating incentives for them to do so, such as hosting an Instagram contest where the funniest or most creative caption wins free product.
Build Trust Through Content
By being vulnerable, authentic and consistent in content creation, brands can build trust among Gen Z. And in turn, this younger generation are much likely to become consumers.

According to a study conducted by Criteo, Generation Z streams an average of 23 hours of video content per week. Couple this with the cohort spending approximately 3 hours per day on social media, and it becomes crystal clear where brands need to be focusing their attention if they want to become popular among the age group. Essentially, if your brand doesn't have a viable presence across Instagram, YouTube and other social media platforms, in the eyes of Gen Z, your brand doesn't exist. It's just that simple.

... Read More

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How To Win Over Generation Z, Who Hold $44 Billion Of Buying Power

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Gen Z holds a whopping $44 billion in buying power. With so much pull in the marketplace, companies that cater to these teens could find themselves stepping into an opportunity that could catapult their brand to new heights. Let's take a look at 5 effective ways to win over Gen Z consumers.

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Five years ago, I worked in an office in SoHo, and, at the end of each day, while walking to the train, I would pass the small storefront of the women's clothing brand Reformation. The company, which had a slightly cultish following, was known for minimalist, insouciant dresses and separates in which multiple vectors of aspiration converged: the clothes were designed for the bodies of models, produced from environmentally friendly fabrics, and mostly priced in the low three digits-just the right amount to blur the lines between those who thought of a two-hundred-and-eighteen-dollar jumpsuit as an affordable basic and those for whom it would be an impractical splurge. This was apparel with the power to confer an aura of nonchalant dominance. Karlie Kloss and Rihanna were spotted walking into Reformation; Taylor Swift and the Haim sisters Instagrammed themselves in hundred-and-eighteen-dollar Reformation sweatshirts. The brand was especially popular for weddings: its long, slinky dresses in neutrals or lace or florals were an obvious choice for women-guest, bride, or bridesmaid-who rolled their eyes at heterosexual consumerist monogamy but adhered faithfully enough to its precepts to want to look hot. On Reformation's Web site, the description for a four-hundred-and-twenty-eight-dollar wrap dress practically yawns: "Since people just won't stop getting married, we'll keep making wedding appropriate dresses." The dress being hawked has a V neck that plunges to the navel; it is seemingly unwearable unless you are thin, flat-chested, and a couple of inches under six feet tall. (According to the company Web site, the brand's main clothing line, which goes up to a size 12 that fits like a very tight size 10, is designed to fit women between five feet six and five feet ten. There's also a petite collection, for women under five feet two.)

During the period when I passed this storefront regularly, gainful employment was a personal novelty, and I preferred to spend as little money on clothes as possible. I knew that this brand was targeting me attitudinally, and I often averted my eyes. Then time passed, and it was no longer appropriate for me to dress like a college student; I got my professional footing and stopped feeling quite as much like a Muppet who lived in the trash. In her book " Fashionopolis," Dana Thomas notes that Americans sent ten and a half billion tons of clothing to landfills in 2015, and that fewer than two per cent of garment workers make a living wage. I joined the expanding ranks of young-ish women who felt guilty about supporting such appalling labor and environmental practices, and who could afford to avoid doing so. I went to Reformation and conducted a tactical survey to figure out which of their clothes would fit me. By 2017, I was folding up a doll's wardrobe of Reformation outfits every time I packed for a trip. On a bachelorette weekend last year, a friend and I opened our suitcases in a Miami hotel room and hung up four near-identical Reformation minidresses. I recently ordered a second black cropped T-shirt from Reformation, after I realized I'd worn my first one every week for more than a year. I began to think of Reformation-and comparable brands that occupy different niches, such as Glossier and Outdoor Voices-as occupying a place in millennial lives not unlike that of the astrology apps that have become extremely popular among twentysomething women. There is comfort in subsuming your sense of individuality to a larger sentiment of prescription and predetermination. There is pleasure in looking at a screen and having someone tell you what to do.

Reformation was created, in 2009, by Yael Aflalo, a former model whose parents owned a clothing store in downtown Los Angeles. She started her first fashion line, called YaYa, in 1999, at the age of twenty-one. Reformation was born out of the post-recession slump, which spelled doom for YaYa, and Aflalo's discontentment with the " ten years of waste" she'd accumulated in her warehouse by the end. She and a few employees bought vintage dresses, customized them, and sold them out of a small L.A. storefront: Aflalo told Racked that the brand's startup costs were something like seven thousand dollars. The clothes were instantly popular, and Aflalo opened a second store, in New York. She convinced Urban Outfitters to stock the brand, selling pieces under the name " Reformed by The Reformation." In 2013, after a trip to a smoggy and sludgy manufacturing city in China, Aflalo decided to open a factory in L.A. and sell directly to consumers on the Web, hoping to show that one could produce clothing on a mass scale with a minimum of waste. Online sales were slow at first, but then Aflalo started styling her models more carefully. She placed them in real-feeling rooms instead of against white backgrounds, trying to avoid the impression, common to other online stores, that " an accountant was taking the picture." She shot the models in motion, with editorial lighting, and gave them a specific look-minimal makeup, loose and messy hair. The results felt like she'd "hit gold," she told Inc. By 2015, the company's Web site was drawing two hundred thousand monthly visitors and it had brought in more than twenty-five million dollars in revenue.

Reformation now operates seventeen stores globally, with two more, in Austin and on the Upper East Side, coming soon. It has raised thirty-seven million dollars from investors, and it recently took on the private-equity firm Permira Advisers as a majority stakeholder. It's also profitable, with projected sales of a hundred and fifty million dollars this year. Its messaging has remained consistent: the brand still uses the slogan "Being naked is the #1 most sustainable option. We're #2." On its Instagram account, which has one and a half million followers, shots of sultry models in skintight dresses alternate with photos of Greta Thunberg and information about how to purchase carbon offsets on the Reformation Web site. One Instagram story from the account advises brides to wear a "hot, sustainable dress," to send electronic invitations, and to work with venders who support local farms.

The company also publishes quarterly sustainability reports and information about the fashion industry's environmental impact-highlighting, for instance, that synthetic fabrics, when washed, release microfibres into the water supply that end up in the food of marine animals and humans alike. Reformation tracks the environmental footprint of each piece in its collection, from fibre production and dyeing to shipping and garment care. (" It's all about math, and we're super into it," the Web site explains.) The reports detail shortcomings: the company's garment bags are still made of plastic, and a quarter of its fabrics have clean-chemical certifications. Last year's sustainability report gave the company a frowny face for falling well short of its goal to get seventy-five per cent of its Los Angeles manufacturing team to a local living wage. (The factory workers, the report added, do get 401(k)s and health benefits, as well as massages and E.S.L. classes.) Aflalo, who's now forty-two, once told the Times that she wanted to combine " altruism and narcissism." She recently described the company to Vogue Business as " Zara but with a soul." (In 2014, Aflalo hired Zara's trend director, Manuel Ruyman Santos Fdez, as Reformation's design director.)

That's a formidable goal: Zara brings in around nineteen billion dollars a year in revenue and operates more than two thousand stores around the world. It is also an inherently contradictory one: there's a limit to how altruistic one can be when producing and shipping clothing at anything approaching that scale. Previously, about half of the fabrics Reformation used were deadstock-leftovers from other fashion houses-but, as its offerings have expanded, that figure has dropped to about fifteen per cent. The company has developed a Zara-esque speedy production cycle: clothes can go from the design table to stores in a month. In "Fashionopolis," Aflalo tells Dana Thomas that sustainability, to her, means running a tight ship and offsetting the inevitable damage. The company has billed itself as carbon-neutral since 2015, and other fashion brands have followed suit: Everlane recently launched a carbon-neutral collection, Allbirds has declared itself carbon-neutral, the luxury conglomerate Kering has announced plans to offset its brands' current greenhouse-gas emissions and to reduce them by fifty per cent by 2025.

The methodology behind what Reformation calls its "sexy calculations" is public, but carbon offsetting is not quite as straightforward as the company implies. (The Web site describes offsetting as "Kinda like Venmo, but for the Earth.") The current market for carbon offsets sometimes resembles the market for indulgences in the late Middle Ages: what's actually being sold is vaguely defined and unreliably calculated, and what's being remedied is guilt, above all else. One sees this impulse elsewhere on the Reformation site, which declares that customers are saving " almost 3,500 gallons of water" by purchasing a zip-up, wide-legged denim jumpsuit-a claim that only begins to make sense if the choice is buying a denim jumpsuit from Reformation or buying a denim jumpsuit from another retailer. It is also possible to just not buy a denim jumpsuit. "The prevailing sustainable platform-'Buy less, use less'-isn't a scalable strategy," Aflalo once told Vogue. "You buy clothes because you really want them. The sustainability part is for us to figure out."

A successful brand is one that makes the customer want to go shopping in the first place; it shapes the need that it then fills. Reformation may be the most fashionable eco-friendly brand there is, and it has surely pushed many of its customers to think about disposability and everyday carbon impact. But it is hard to echo, with a straight face, the company's proposition that looking cute is a way of protecting the earth.

There's a tacit sense of superiority embedded in the clean lines of the Reformation project. The brand's ideal woman can wear a minidress with a plunging-V neckline and look bored and expensive rather than overtly sexualized or " vulgar," as most women would in such outfits. (In 2014, Reformation introduced a capsule I'm Up Here collection for women with big boobs, which hasn't been seen since the second launch, in 2015; a spokesperson for Reformation said, in an e-mail, "We now always have a mix of items in our collection that cater to women with larger breasts.") Last year, the company launched a plus-size collection that goes up to size 24, and apologized for not doing so sooner, calling it "obviously unfair" that they had only offered clothing in "a limited size range." The plus-size model with whom Reformation partnered for the launch, Ali Tate Cutler, had previously written, on Instagram, "Sorry but I don't care about people's health who are fat... I do care about the excessive amounts of carbon, nitrous oxide, and methane gases it takes to produce a large person... Being obese is simply bad for the environment, and in this day and age, we cannot afford that lack of empathy anymore." Cutler, who's a size 14, and recently became the first plus-size Victoria's Secret model, subsequently attempted to apologize, more or less. But her comments had captured something implicit in the brand identity of the company whose off-the-shoulder gingham dresses she would later model: the idea that ecological responsibility dovetails, in some actual way, with being conventionally hot. (When I asked the Reformation spokesperson about Cutler's comments, the spokesperson said that they did not reflect the brand's views, adding, "We believe the virtue of being environmentally conscious is something that all people can and should incorporate into their lives.")

I'm not the right height for Reformation's clothes, or exactly the right shape, but if I can manage to zip up a piece of Reformation clothing, it usually fits like a dream. The brand offers its customers the hard-to-resist, self-satisfactory pleasure that comes with conforming to a prototype. ("is Reformation just slutty Eileen Fisher???" the writer Gabby Noone once tweeted.) The concept of sustainable fast fashion is oxymoronic, but the company's accomplishments in that direction are tantalizing anyway. And the brand carries certain connotations, as a friend-who feels guilty buying anything new but often wears Reformation-put it to me: "I'm a savvy, grown-up consumer choosing quality and good taste," she texted, in self-deflating scare quotes. "I've made good choices in my professional life, but I'm still laid-back and cool."

Shopping at Reformation has helped me to buy fewer clothes, thanks in part to that cropped black T-shirt, made from the company's "holy grail" fabric Tencel, that I continue to wear every week. But Reformation also tempts me to buy more. A few months ago, I was in Los Angeles and found myself pulling over, with the wordless instinct of a salmon swimming back to its native river, into a parking spot on Melrose and heading into Reformation's white, minimalist storefront, the big rectangular window of which showcased a rack of things that would look ludicrous on me-milkmaid dresses, cropped wide-legged jeans. The store was big and spare, and the clothes were display-only: to try anything on, you had to stand in front of a large and finicky touch screen and add items one by one to a cart. I selected a confetti-print minidress, a daisy-print mid-length skirt, a sheer black button-down, and a leopard-print blouse with straps that tied like ribbons. Though the store appeared to be empty, the touch screen informed me that there was an eighteen-minute wait for the fitting room, which I confirmed with the aloof women who manned what a sign on the wall called the " LOVE DESK." When I finally got into the fitting room, the skirt's zipper instantly jammed. (Anecdotally, the brand's quality appears to have gone down as production has scaled up.) Everything looked bad on me, which came as a great relief. I walked out of the store applying some Reformation logic: if buying those four pieces would have saved thousands of gallons of water, then, by declining to buy them, I had put six hundred and two dollars in the bank.

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Five years ago, I worked in an office in SoHo, and, at the end of each day, while walking to the train, I would pass the small storefront of the women's clothing brand Reformation.

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BBC Earth | Six fashion materials that could help save the planet | BBC Earth

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From fast fashion to cotton, the list of ways we consume fashion that have an adverse effect on our environment and other species is a long one. BBC Earth looks at six types of material and innovations which could help in the drive for a more sustainable way of life.

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LOS ANGELES, United States - Reformation, the direct-to-consumer brand known for its influential aesthetic as well as its commitment to sustainable manufacturing, has raised a $25 million Series B funding round led by Stripes Group with participation from 14W and Imaginary Ventures, the new venture capital firm founded by Natalie Massenet and .

Founded in 2009 by chief executive Yael Aflalo, who remains the majority shareholder, Reformation became a vertically integrated direct-to-consumer business in 2012. It has since grown steadily - an average of 60 percent year-over-year since 2014 - with an estimated revenue of just over $100 million in 2017. It raised $12 million in a Series A round in 2015. Today, 80 percent of sales come through the website.

Aflalo plans to use the funding to add more physical retail stores where shoppers can browse samples and select what they want to try on through touchscreen monitors. Product is then brought by sales associates directly to individual dressing rooms, which are larger and more numerous, through double-sided wardrobes. Since adopting this new concept in all but two of its current retail outposts, "we definitely have happier customers," says Aflalo. According to the executive, net promoter scores, a tool for measuring customer loyalty, are "meaningfully higher" in the new-format stores than in the remaining traditional stores.

The company opened five new-format stores this year in Los Angeles, Dallas, New York and San Francisco and two pop-ups in Miami and the Hamptons and is planning a similar pace for 2018 in major US cities. "With every few stores, we are going to be introducing new features and new operations," she says. (As of now, she does not have plans to convert the first two New York stores in the Lower East Side and Soho to the new format because they are important revenue drivers and it would require shutting them down for at least a month to renovate.)

The new store formats are also the foundation of a cross-channel approach to sales growth. "One of our big initiatives for next year is 'buy anything anywhere,'" she says. "And that requires a pretty strong technical foundation." The biggest hurdle is ensuring each store has not only highly accurate inventory, but that the inventory system accounts for where an item is in the store. A piece in the dressing room or that a client is preparing to purchase, for example, can't be available to buy online.

Imaginary Ventures' Brown says Aflalo has proven she can build retail experiences that make shoppers want to come into the store, and are profitable with both new and existing customers. "If you look in the world of physical retail today, there are not a lot of companies that can successfully say that," he says. "She's recognised the [retail] evolution and she builds stores that allow the actual experience of trying on product to be a little more unique.... In a way, the back of house has become the front of house." And Reformation's release frequency - new product is available as often as every week - keeps customers engaged.

Brown met Aflalo about five years ago when he was a partner at venture capital firm 14W, which invested in a seed round in 2014 and the Series A in 2015, and then joined Reformation's board. Imaginary Ventures launched earlier this year and is still actively raising funds, but has already invested in HUM Nutrition, Daily Harvest and Heist Tights.

Reformation's stores are also important for customer acquisition, which can be particularly challenging for direct-to-consumer brands that operate solely in the vast sea of e-commerce where it is because increasingly expensive to target consumers through paid marketing. "A customer that shops online and retail is twice as valuable as a customer that shops only online," says Aflalo. "We are a little bit unique in the sense that the lion's share of our customer acquisition is organic." Ten percent of Reformation's new customers come through paid channels, and while she expects that number to increase in 2018, she says she wants it to remain a significant minority.

A customer that shops online and retail is twice as valuable as a customer that shops only online.

In addition to expanding the store count, Aflalo plans to use the funding to continue to invest in manufacturing and sustainability programs at the brand's Los Angeles factory, where 60 percent of garments are produced. "We have a bigger team there now, researching and investing in new fibers and expanding our compliance processes, making sure we have visibility into where the materials are from," she says.

Reformation's commitment to sustainability is foundational to the brand's identity. "It would be a mistake for us at Imaginary to not understand that consumers today have different expectations in terms of how products are sourced and how they are made," says Brown.

The brand's clear values and messaging, combined with a distinctive aesthetic, are especially important in an era where private labels account for 20 percent of the US apparel market, together representing more sales than any single brand, according to research firm NPD. Data-aggregating e-retailers, particularly Amazon, and fast-fashion retailers, such as , can undercut Reformation's growth. (Reformation's prices range across categories from about $30 to $600.)

But Brown says that the"audience of people that are in a position to stay with the brand, to get excited by the brand and to grow with the brand - ultimately, irrespective of what Amazon is doing - is a massive, massive market opportunity."

Brown remembers comments made during Reformation's earliest stages that it was too cool to be able to scale. "Yael has proven that she can continue to grow and cultivate a brand that people have an association with, that is somewhat limited in terms of distribution, that is constantly reinventing itself from a product angle, but one that can scale and become a meaningfully sized business," he says. "It's definitely cult and it's definitely cool, but it's not niche."
Editor's Note: A previous version of this article misstated that 14W and Imaginary Ventures lead the Series B funding round. This is incorrect. Stripes Group led and 14W and Imaginary Ventures participated. Related Articles: The Top 10 Venture-Backed Fashion Startups How BFF Marketing Became the M.O. for Women's Direct-to-Consumer Brands

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Reformation Raises $25 Million to Fuel Brick-and-Mortar Growth

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LOS ANGELES, United States - Reformation, the direct-to-consumer brand known for its influential aesthetic as well as its commitment to sustainable manufacturing, has raised a $25 million Series B funding round led by Stripes Group with participation from 14W and Imaginary Ventures, the new venture capital firm founded by Natalie Massenet and .

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Tomorrow, 10 years after it launched, the cult Los Angeles label Reformation opens its first UK store. You may not know the brand's name but you've probably seen its signature style, which has saturated Instagram for the past few years. Much copied, it is a sort of digital native take of boho: a floral dress with a high leg split, a deep square neckline, a button-down front or spaghetti straps.

What makes Reformation the most 2019 of fashion brands, however, is its green credentials, claiming to operate as a "100% carbon, water and waste neutral company". Its combination of sass and sustainability - "Being naked is the #1 most sustainable option. We're #2" reads the brand's Instagram bio - has won it an army of followers. "#RefBabes" include Bella Hadid, Emily Ratajkowski, Taylor Swift and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex.

Reformation dresses aren't cheap compared with high street competitors - prices range from £80 to £435 - but they sell out quickly, on average within 38 days. Despite the higher prices, the brand describes itself as fast fashion - its website highlights the fact that "at Ref a sketch can become a dress in about a month" - whereas this process can often taken around 18 months for non-fast fashion labels.

Answering, and driving, consumer desire for newness while working hard to be sustainable is a very modern fashion contradiction - and a model most environmental campaigners would probably dismiss.

Overall, the brand's sustainability policies seem sincere and comprehensive. CEO Yael Aflalo has often talked about founding the company after being shocked to discover the pollution caused by clothing manufacturing on a trip to China. As a result, Reformation tracks the environmental impact of the clothes it produces, while 2-5% of the products are made out of vintage clothing, repurposed into new pieces. They also use deadstock and eco-friendly fabrics, and recycle, compost or donate textile scraps, with the goal of becoming entirely zero waste. The brand doesn't use polyester, nylon, virgin polyester, virgin nylon and conventional cotton, due to their excessive carbon footprint.

Even so, Reformation has on occasion failed to meet its own targets: when its 2018 Sustainability Report was published it was revealed that just 22% of the factory team were paid LA's living wage. Meanwhile, just 26% of all fabric spend came with clean chemical certifications (the company's goal was 75% for both). Despite these failings, the brand's openness has been praised for being better than most. Even the carbon cost of the launch party for the brand's British outpost has been carefully considered: among many initiatives, a tree will be planted for every guest in attendance.

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A dress from the Reformation autumn/winter 2019 collection. Photograph: Publicity Image

The opening Notting Hill will be the first standalone store in the UK with the full Reformation range of products (following dedicated spaces at Selfridges and Browns East). Previously, British fans have been able to shop the collection online - where packaging is made from 100% recycled paper products and compostable bio-based materials - but faced highshipping charges on returns (not to mention the carbon footprint created by international shipping, although since 2014 this has been offset by the brand).

Imperfect as it may be, Reformation has certainly disproved the longstanding fashion truism that sustainability cannot be sexy. Sexy sustainability is what it does best.

* This article was amended on 17 September 2019 to note that since 2014, Reformation has offset the carbon footprint of international shipping.

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Reformation's sustainable style comes to the UK as cult label opens first store

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Tomorrow, 10 years after it launched, the cult Los Angeles label Reformation opens its first UK store. You may not know the brand's name but you've probably seen its signature style, which has saturated Instagram for the past few years.