Aesthetic, a new fashion company looking to be the “Shazam for clothes,” launched this week and is using AI to help people identify and shop for clothing they sourced on social media.
The fashion concierge, called Alma, makes it easy for people to buy clothes that might otherwise be hard to find. Say you see an outfit you like on Instagram. You send a link to the post in a direct message to the Aesthetic account on TikTok or Instagram. Alma responds with a link to view the content on the Aesthetic website, where consumers can shop the look or add it to a collection board called Lookbook.
“Our goal is to help users save, shop, and share their fashion inspiration without having to leave their favorite social apps,” said CEO LJ Northington.
Northington had been thinking about what he felt was the lack of innovative tech in e-commerce. Fresh out of college, Northington worked on a project for a well-respected creative director. After hearing the same complaint from the director he was working with, Northington started working on concepts for personal shopping but couldn’t quite find something that worked.
He took a step back and simply asked, “What’s the easiest way to learn someone’s aesthetic?” he told TechCrunch. “The answer was pretty simple: look at their social media feed.”
Northington is already thinking big for the app. Aesthetics have taken over pop culture, and he thinks his app can be used to help creators monetize their style. He says he’s talking with brands and record labels about how their artists can create their own Aesthetic pages so fans can shop their trends. Think of how everyone dressed up in silver for Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” tour or the neon green looks of Charli XCX’s Brat Summer.
He declined to state how much the company has raised so far, but says that Aesthetic has received investments from Slow Capital and Zeal Capital Partners, and has advisors that include Victor Herrero, former CEO of Guess, and Kelly Helfman, president of Informa Markets Fashion.
The proprietary fashion AI/ML platform is being funded by the Google Cloud AI startup program.
“We’re using the money to get to profitability,” Northington said. “Luckily Google is helping us out with some of the larger AI items, so we’re able to run a pretty cost-efficient business.”
Before this, Northington worked in business development and strategy for Westbrook, the media company co-founded by Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith. He wanted to be an NFL player for most of his life, but at the same time, grew up watching his father’s entrepreneurial journey and saw the fulfillment it gave him. When Northington’s career in sports fell through, he thought the business world was the closest thing to becoming a professional athlete.
He also studied psychology at Harvard, which helped him gain a different perspective on consumer habits and motivation. “Building consumer tech in today’s world is a very psychological, philosophical endeavor,” he said. “Building a consumer app is basically one big social experiment.”