InvestFashion

InvestFashion (investfashion.com), abbreviated as IF, is a project developed by the founder of the Arts of Fashion Foundation, Nathalie Doucet. The website is an online platform (a spin-off of the Debut-Series) created to finance entrepreneurial fashion designers by way of crowdsourcing/crowdfunding. It is geared towards finding and uniting investors with awarded fashion designers.
History: Arts of Fashion Debut-Series to InvestFashion.com
InvestFashion.com is a spin-off of the Debut-Series (a program begun by the Arts of Fashion Foundation and the YKK Group) aimed at promoting and assisting fashion design talent within the United States. Through this program the Foundation assists selected young designers and alumni of the Arts of Fashion Foundation programs to bring their first collection on the runway.
The Debut-Series is open to designers early in their careers who are no later than 5 years out of graduation from a post-secondary institution. These applicants submit drawings of a collection plan of 6 to 8 outfits with at least one sample garment. The Arts of Fashion Debut-Series review committee meets and selects the finalists to participate in the Debut-Series of the Arts of Fashion Foundation annual Symposium.
These finalists are recognized as YKK Group -supported young designers. The Arts of Fashion Foundation committee will advise them throughout the process of making their collection. In addition to showing their garments on the runway, the finalists receive a prize of $2,000 (per designer) to help them cover the expense of making their collections courtesy of the sponsor- YKK Group. YKK Corp. of America / YKK (U.S.A.) Inc. also provides them with fastening products to use in their collections.
Debut-Series Finalists and YKK Supported Designers:
2009 Amy Sarabi, Chelsea Snyder, and Julianne Thibodeaux
2008 Natallia Pilipenka, Akarasun Seanglai and Stephanie Otto
2007 Douglas Reker, Carlos Santiago, Megan Stein and David Gil
In 2010, the Founder of the Arts of Fashion Foundation, Nathalie Doucet, launched the website InvestFashion.com to continue what was started in Debut-Series and open the borders to designers outside of the United States. The platform expands on the mere promotion of these designers' collection and creates a format that pairs investors with the designers to follow the collection into production through crowdfunding.
The website houses a section for designers and a section for investors. Investors are able to see a profile of the designer, their previous works, and their proposed IF collection. After the collection is funded, the designer moves into the production process and will manufacture their first collection to be sold on the InvestFashion website.
InvestFashion is one of the first to use the idea of crowdsourcing/crowdfunding in the fashion industry, Kickstarter being the first to crowdfund through donations towards creative projects. Similar formats have included: Catwalk Genius (a website that offers the public the chance to shop, invest, and earn perks like seats at runway shows or autographed sketches) and Fashion Stake (a website that secures funding from the public, who will also offer design advice, for designers who have already established a fan-base and have manufactured collections.) InvestFashion, however, is a format that functions on investment rather than donations.
Format
InvestFashion gives a wide range of people the opportunity to participate in investing in designers selected by a panel of fashion professionals, journalists, retailers and designers. Through these investors, the website helps these designers to raise $75,000 to cover: the designer's creative process, technical development of the collection, marketing and communications, production and manufacturing, and a minimum of 300 retail pieces. Each designer's collection is divided into 3,000 shares of $25. Investors are limited to 40 shares ($1,000) per designer.
Entrepreneurial fashion designers can register with InvestFashion, create a profile and submit a collection that is reviewed by a panel of industry professionals. InvestFashion, being in support of the Design Piracy Prohibition Act, requests not to have samples of the garments in order to protect it from being copied. The IF profiles are kept confidential until the designer has been chosen to be a part of the 6 designers. When chosen, the designer gets featured on the InvestFashion designer page, and the investment process begins. When the designer has raised the $75,000, they move into the manufacturing process where InvestFashion will partner with the designer to actualize their collection and manufacture 300 pieces to be sold on the InvestFashion website.
The First SIX IF Designers
Following the idea of the emergence of the Antwerp Six, InvestFashion features designers in a series of 6. The First SIX InvestFashion Designers:
Aurore Thibout (Paris)
Natallia Pilipenka (New York)
Lucile Puton (Paris)
Bora Han (San Francisco)
Chelsea Snyder (San Francisco)
Akarasun Seanglai (Bangkok)
The Arts of Fashion Foundation
The Arts of Fashion Foundation - a San Francisco-based (C)(3), public, nonprofit organization - has initiated InvestFashion.com. For years, the primary focus of the Arts of Fashion Foundation has been the support of young fashion designers.
Linking both academics and professionals, the Arts of Fashion Foundation has many programs which provide a place for international, cultural exchange and networking between artists, designers, scholars and students.

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