Goodbye sunset by anggha on Flickr (cc)

I’m very sad to report that we’ve decided to pack Catwalk Genius away in mothballs and call it a day.

It’s been a splendid chapter in our lives and we still believe there’s scope for a company to successfully bring fashion designers and  consumers together directly, but after a lot of thought we’ve reluctantly concluded that it won’t be us.

Some of the key lessons we learned are outlined below, but the tl:dr is that the market has matured since we first entered into the fray. Now, our pockets simply aren’t deep enough to catch up on the competitors who’ve realised the potential in enabling style fans to become involved in the fashion creation and buying processes.

We worked with some very talented people and businesses over the lifespan of the venture and we’d like to thank them for all their work and support. Most of all, we’d like to thank the designers and customers who took a chance on Catwalk Genius when we were the tiny, unknown, out-of-towners on the scene. You all rock, so hard.

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For any start-up founders interested in the space, here are the main things you might like to take from our experience.

Writing down the causes of failure is the ultimate exercise in humility and you may rest assured that we are acutely aware of our stupendous idiocy in making these route-one cock-ups. My ego would like to state for its own health that this was our first start-up venture and we’ve comprehensively learned these and a multitude of other valuable lessons over the course of it.

Defence aside, this is the summary of the main things we’d do differently in retrospect:

• We tested our product assumptions, but didn’t apply enough rigour in testing our hypotheses about the market. We have since read Four Steps to the Epiphany 100 times as penance. Founders, don’t do this. It’s a senseless waste. Steve Blank’s Lean Launchpad posts at Stanford detail some excellent real-life examples of how to scientifically test your venture to avoid failure, if you need a spot of hand-holding.
• As a result, we over-estimated how much customer traction we could achieve while boot-strapping. Our consumers liked the interactive nature of what we were doing, but this didn’t change the fact that the competition was every clothing retailer around our price points.
• Even if we had an inkling about the previous point, we underestimated the importance and expense of an achingly-beautiful aesthetic in order to sell fashion online. We worked with great providers in this area and IMHO we managed a decent job for our little budget, but to compete in this field requires a pricey ongoing large quantity of the highest quality buying, web & UX design, photography, styling and modelling.
• We should have had a full-time, in-house engineer to make ongoing enhancements to the web product as we learned more about the market needs. We also worked with talented programmers but never took the leap of hiring them full-time. The founders also had no coding skills, so were entirely dependent on outside help. We’re eliminating this basic ignorance now, of course. Our next venture will almost certainly also include a technical co-founder.
• As a result of this, we took far too long to pivot away from crowd-funding after learning about the difficulties in its scale.
• Throughout the venture we lived a few hundred miles away from half of our demographic and the key industry figures. At one point, we lived a whole sea away. And flying that frequently isn’t fun. I’m sure it’s eminently possible to scale a new venture away from one of the world’s start-up capitals, but we’re pretty sure that you can’t grow a fashion start-up away from a global fashion capital.

And that’s the long and short of it from my perspective.

I’m happy to attempt an answer to individual questions from entrepreneurs via email, so leave them in the comments and I’ll get back to you when I can. We have nothing but encouragement for you.

One thing we’re sure of is that despite all of the above, start-up life is very definitely the only way to fly. We’re already working on our next venture, so keep in touch and we’ll let you know what we rustle up.

Thanks again – Helen.

Alexa Chung, winner of the British Style Award

British Fashion Royalty had their Christmas party last night, as the BFC doled out their annual awards.

Emerging designer prizes went to the brilliant Mary Katrantzou (RTW), Tabitha Simmons (accessories) and Christopher Raeburn (menswear).

A new prize for the brands getting their feet under the international table, the ‘New Establishment’ prize – went to Christopher Kane.

Role-called among other prize-winning names like Stella McCartney (Red Carpet Award) and Victoria Beckham (Designer Brand), these reasonably young labels are seriously cementing their luxury reputation.

See the full list of winners on the official site.

Persy A/W11

Persy A/W11

Persy A/W11

Israeli-born Designer Yaniv Persy has collaborated with brands including Lanvin and Roberto Cavalli before establishing his own label in 2009.

He presented Spring/Summer 2012 recently in Milan – see below for a glimpse.

Persy S/S12

Persy S/S12

Persy S/S12

With news just in that Victoria Beckham’s fashion line is headed for a cool £15m in profit, now seems like an ideal time to get your brand off the ground.

Vauxhall Fashion Scout’s sponsorship and £1,000 cash prize are one of the best ways to do it, with past winners including Peter Pilotto, David Koma, Maria Francesca Pepe, Felder Felder, Iris Van Herpen and William Tempest.

See the official site for more info and request your information pack from show@vauxhallfashionscout before the 14th November closing date.

Heidi Mottram SS12

Using her signature eelskin fabric, Heidi found inspiration for the collection from the wrapper, shape, texture and negative space of a fortune cookie.

Heidi Mottram SS12

Each piece has a style name related to the superstition theme, such as the midas,  hope, fate and chance clutches, the fortune card wallet, the talisman ipad case and superstition key ring. We’re feeling lucky.

Heidi Mottram SS12

BFC Elle Talent Launchpad winners 2011

The BFC and Elle have just announced the latest winners of their Launchpad initiative to support growing British brands at London Fashion Week.

The lucky four are:

• Claudia Catzeflis
• Saloni
• Sophie Hulme and
• Vassilisa.

It’s always exciting to see the progress of the brands coming through this relatively new project, which is an essential lifeline to labels aiming to get off to a flying, global start. Well done to all four.

JW Anderson AW11

Up for Designer of the Year are Christopher Kane, Erdem and – perhaps the obvious choice after that dress – Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen.

VB gets the nod in both designer brand and red carpet categories, signalling that she’s certainly got her feet well and truly under the British Fashion table these days.

Jordan Askill's 'Boy'

In the more interesting ‘emerging’ categories are some of our favourites. The Emerging Accessories names are Jordan Askill (shown above), Nasir Mazhar and Tabitha Simmons.

Ready to Wear Emerging designer nominations go to J.W. Anderson (see top of post), Mary Katrantzou (below) and Peter Pilotto.

Mary Katrantzou A/W11

Congratulations and good luck to all of the nominees – you can see the full list on the official site. The winners will be announced at the award event on 28th November.

Their tagline is ‘make an entrance’; in these looks you most certainly would. YUM.

Numph: look 1

Numph look 2

Numph: look 3

Zoe Boomer AW11

Zoe Boomer AW11

Zoe Boomer AW11

For the full collection and stockists,visit ZoeBoomer.com.

VFS Ones To Watch - Phoebe English

The latest Vauxhall Fashion Scout ‘Ones to Watch’ will be the class of Spring/Summer 2012. They are:

• Phoebe English (pictured above);
• Alice Lee (pictured below);
• Malene Oddershede Bach and
• Shao Yen.

VFS Ones To Watch - Alice Lee

It’s a bumper season for Central Saint Martin’s graduates; all but Malene Oddershede Bach (Middlesex University) have emerged from the school’s design-star-making machine.

The chosen four will show at VFS’ beautiful Freemason’s Hall venue between 16-21st September. Congratulations to them all!