NJAL

 

Young up-and-coming fashion designers often face enormous problems at the start of their careers. It was our aim to become an integral component of the fashion industry, to present young contemporary fashion designers and their collections to a broad audience.

 

My brother and I had the idea for it. We saw the potential in creating something for the fashion industry that was similar to Myspace and what it was doing for music. There was no such website back then that professionally listed designers like in the yellow pages.

 

We have since grown into a team of about 15 people throughout the world who scout for talents and report on trends and events.

 

 

Many fashion websites and blogs concern themselves with the same thing. They’re basically all about discovering new trends and events. There are a couple of excellent platforms that manage to spot and spread trends before anyone else. It was our primary intention to provide a valuable service for the industry, to set up a tool that designers, editors and buyers can also effectively benefit from.

 

Two forms of quality control decide what goes onto NJAL and what doesn’t. Anyone who’s not a designer or hasn’t uploaded a collection won’t be displayed, and later on will be deleted. And whoever is not up to our standards will also be deleted. This may all sound a bit strict but this way we can guarantee that all products on our website were actually made by the designers, that all information on them is correct and that we can offer our customers a range of excellent designers.

 

 

The preparation phase was very short. Within only 8 weeks we managed to set up the shop but only had very little time for PR. However, the concept of an online shop selling exclusive unique pieces in monthly changing collections selected by renowned people from the industry has been received very well. Within the first week we had about 60 press articles throughout the world, among others in Elle, Dazed & Confused, Stylebubble, Grazia and The Guardian.

 

In terms of sales we’re doing quite well even if, in times of recession and credit crunch, we first had to educate our customers as to why unique pieces are so expensive. But then again we have a new collection every month so at one point or other we’re bound to have something for everyone. Amanda Lepore will be our host in August.

 

We’re also planning to open a pop-up store for London Fashion Week which should pave the way for an actual NJAL store. But that’s still a long way to go.