Derek Lam is showing us the future of fashion. But it’s not on the runway, it’s on your computer screen. This rising star designer is teaming up with eBay on an exclusive collection that you get to vote on.
This is the future of fashion, crowd-sourced design. It’s a virtual relationship between designer and customer. By voting for your favorite dresses, Lam gets instant feedback on what designs are working and which ones aren’t. He’ll only produce the dresses that get the most votes.
eBay is stepping more and more into the fashion world. It started with FashionVault, exclusive designer flash sales Then last year, Narciso Rodriguez created a mini collection for sale only on eBay. For Derek Lam’s collaboration, he created a 16 piece dress collection, which was just shown during New York Fashion Week. Now you can vote on each dress, giving it the thumbs up or thumbs down. The five dresses that get the most votes will be sold on eBay in May in the Derek Lam store.
I have to give eBay props for the way the dresses are displayed. You see each look on the model, and she turns around so you get a 360 degree view. It’s almost lifelike, a private showing just for you. During the shoot a fan was blowing, so that you can see how the clothes move, which is a really cool thing. Each dress has a little video story about Lam’s inspiration, in his voice. All websites that sell clothes should do this!
The line ranges from cute little dresses in cotton and denim, to long flowing elegant dresses, and prices go from $125 to $295 (most dresses are under $200). Another neat thing — before you vote you can see the current ranking for each dress. I voted for the short sun dress in dark blue denim. My vote didn’t change the ranking, which was at number 3.
There doesn’t seem to be any type of restriction on the number of times you vote for one dress, or how many votes you can cast on all 16 looks. And of course, you can share your vote with your Facebook friends and Twitter followers. So vote now to take part in the future of fashion.
