A Chat with Open Wardrobe’s Julia Dietmar

Welcome to Sustainability Unplugged: Conversations on Green Living. Our goal is to empower sustainable choices in ourselves and everyone listening.

Okay, welcome to Sustainability Unplugged. I am Jessica.

And I'm Lynn. And this week we're talking fashion, uh, but making it sustainable. We're joined by Julia Dittmer, co-founder and CEO of Open Wardrobe, an AI-powered platform that helps you get more out of the clothes that you already own. It's part digital closet part stylist, and part community, all designed to make dressing more sustainable and more fun. We'll talk about how technology and conscious choices can work hand in hand to change the way we shop, dress, and think about fashion. Welcome, Julia.

Thank you, Lynn and Jessica.

Of course. Well, before we totally get started and dive into Open Wardrobe, Can you tell us a little bit about your background and kind of what created the inspiration for this platform?

Yeah, sure. Well, I started out as a software engineer. I was a coder for about 9 years of my career until I switched to more business side. And then I worked a lot in technical product management. For various companies. With shopping specifically and kind of clothing, I started a little bit in my first product management job. I was working for Yahoo and building platform for Yahoo Shopping back in the day when Yahoo was still the thing. And then I was working for a startup that got acquired by Walmart. And that's where I really got into retail and learning everything about different verticals of retail. Apparel was one of them, and that was one of the most fascinating verticals. And then after Walmart, I joined a company called ThredUp, which is a secondhand platform, and that's where I got into more kind of sustainable fashion, circular economy. And then after that, I went to work for a deep tech company where we built AI for retails. So that was my kind of foray into deep tech and AI. And in that company, I worked a lot with apparel brands all over the world, and we were helping them build AI for personalizing customer experiences. And we were helping to build AI, generative AI. It was before LLMs and before It became a buzzword and a hot thing, but we were helping photo studios to create additional photography without actually doing photo shoots and just kind of streamline their operations. So, so during all of that, I heard a lot from brands about how they were not knowing their customers as well as they should. And that kind of led through to overproduction, and it led to producing things that nobody wanted to buy. And we all know about— I think it happened in 2018, if my memory serves— Burberry. There's an article about Burberry burning almost a million dollars worth of clothing, and it sparked like all these discussions about how unsustainable practices were and why we were overproducing all of these resources that were spent to produce this beautiful clothes. Everything was just destroyed. So that's when I, I kind of started thinking about what can we do as a solution. And Open Wardrobe was born to help consumers because when I looked into what existed in the market, it seemed that there were a lot of solutions for the industry. And the industry, fashion industry is very big. And fashion industry helps, employs a lot of people. If you think about the whole supply chain, it's probably one of the biggest employers in the world as an industry. So how do we send the fashion industry better signals, we as consumers? So that's where Open Wardrobe was born and how we kind of decided to build it.

Wow. It sounds like your background is, it envelops like everything that is Open Wardrobe now. Like you've, it's like, let me take from this and let me take from this. That's amazing.

For sure.

Yeah, it was a lot of stepping stones to come to where I am today. For sure.

Very cool.

What gap did you see in the fashion world that made you think this is where AI and digital wardrobes can really help?

Yeah. So what I mean, it's not just me. We all see this, right? We see influencers doing unboxings. We see people talk about clothes and you know, how to wear things, outfits, so on and so forth. But in all of those messages, or most of those messages, the focus is on newness, right? So, so we value— our values are a little bit different. We value new, not quality. And that's where I saw that there was a huge gap because when I opened my mailbox, I'm sure you guys are no different. Emails that come, probably 70% of them, if not more, about buy this, you need this, you absolutely need that, right? And nobody talks about how to use what we already have. And we all heard that the most sustainable outfit is the one already in your closet. That's been everywhere, but no one talks about why and how. So that was a big gap. And then I thought, let's create tools to help people get more of what they already have.

Yeah, it's definitely definitely needed. That's a, it's a problem in our society, the culture.

The culture. And, and, and also, and I'm no different, my, my closet is, is a big mess. That's my next big project to redo my physical space. And it's difficult to even remember what you have because we have, most of us have pretty sizable closets. I look at our users, for example, we have some insane closets, 7,000 items. Wow. Oh my gosh. 5,000 items. I don't know, maybe they own stores. I have no idea, but maybe they're professional sellers, but it's, it's a lot. I mean, the, the reasonably, reasonably sized closet is, I think, let me actually step back. UK did a study. It was before the pandemic. And they found out that on average, a woman owned 103 items of clothing. Our users, we see more. It's more like in 250 range, 220 range. But that is still pretty reasonable. If you, if you have 200+ items, you can easily go a year without repeating an outfit. Probably more than a year, more than a year for sure, right? So what's the point in this new, new, new, new, new? And then when you go with this, yes, I did new, we tend to buy on impulse instead of really thinking about, yes, it looks great on my friend or on that model in the advertisement, but is it gonna look just as good on me? 'Cause I'm completely different, right? Like, my hair is different color, my body's different shape. I'm just not her. So how do I know that what's been advertised to me is gonna be looking good? And just one message that we're trying to send through our app is just stop and think for just a second. Is this gonna fit in? Is this going to flatter you? Is this going to make you happy? Is this going to make you show up how you want to show up? And we provide tools to do just that.

That's amazing because now I'm starting to think about how many pieces of clothing I have, and I feel like I need to go count. I know I do not have 5,000. I know I do not.

But you probably underestimate. Absolutely agree with that. Yeah, if you were to guess how many you have, you probably would.

I'm going to make a guess and then I'm going to count and we're going to— I'm going to report back to you what—

Okay, that's very interesting.

So, for instance, someone caring about open wardrobe. For the first time, possibly on this podcast, right? How would you kind of describe it in just a few words, like your own words? If you had to make a quick pitch, an elevator pitch to someone, how would you describe it to them?

Very simply, I describe it as a platform for mindful dressing. I like that. So that's, that's kind of my one, one thing. And what it does is details. Um, but it really helps you to be a little bit more mindful when it comes to your clothing. We have a bunch of tools, tools do different things, but it's all designed to make you, uh, curate your closet so that anything you pull out goes with anything else. And then you feel good and then you show up how you wanna show up, not like somebody else or not like somebody else thinks you should look.

That's extremely important.

That's, that's our mission.

I think everybody could utilize that and really benefit from something like that.

Yeah, I've been talking about a lot about benefits, which are not something that we even consciously realize. But if you think a little bit for a second, clothes can help with so many things, right? So it can help with your mood. It can help with your mental health because, you know, sometimes you put something on and you just feel amazing about yourself. You look in your mirror and you're like, yeah, okay, I can take on whatever. And then, and other days maybe not. It can help, well, tools like ours, they can help with decision fatigue. It's actually a real thing. I was talking to a neuroscientist about a month ago and decision fatigue is a really real thing which manifests in physiological forms. So to reduce that as much as possible, especially women, you know, with kids that have to deal with so many things, right? Removing just one element or one decision that you don't have to make, or you can make it easier, it just helps tremendously. So I mean, clothes is not— I mean, yes, people say, oh, superficial, it's skin deep and blah blah. Yes, but you know, it's still one of the biggest industries in the world. We still need to get dressed, all of us, and, um, and it can help.

Yeah, everybody has to wear clothes. Yeah, sometimes, but sometimes some days. And also, Lynn and I talk about decision fatigue all the time, so I'm really glad that you brought that up because in anyone's life today, one less thing that you have to make a major decision on is extremely beneficial. Yep.

I actually used that phrase, uh, maybe less than 2 hours ago with someone. They're asking about lunch next week, and I'm like, I can't— I can't decide this right now. Like, it's either you pick or wait for the answer because I can't. Um, Yeah. Well, and they talk about that with the, when you look at some of the tech men that are in, have been CEOs or founders, like Steve Jobs always wore his black turtleneck and it was like, that's all he wore. It was one less decision he had to make because he was making all of these other really important decisions throughout the day.

We're not all Steve Jobs, right?

Yeah. But maybe if we did that, if we acted like that.

Well, and as women, how realistic is it to look always the same, right? So there are, there are ways that you can reduce the decision fatigue and look good and different.

Which is what this is, right?

Exactly.

It'll pick your outfits out for you, right? The platform is more than just Cher's wardrobe tool. On Clueless. It is digital wardrobe, an AI stylist, and a fashion community, which is an awesome unique mix. How did you decide to put all of that into one product?

So it started kind of with a digital closet, but when, when we built it and the first version, it was very simple. It was basically upload photographs of your clothes and create outfits, right? It was very, very simple. It was very— it was AI-powered from the very beginning, but very lightly. So when I looked at it, I was like, yeah, so somebody downloads the app and they have to do work to get something out of it. How do we give them some value immediately? So that's when we started thinking about, okay, what can we bring in from the very beginning? And community was one of the things. Open Wardrobe, and it's in the name kind of inherently, was envisioned as a sharing platform. So I can open my wardrobe to you, you can open your wardrobe to me. If we're friends, we can style each other, we can borrow each other's clothes. If I'm a stylist, I can manage my clients and so on. So, so that was kind of part of what we did from the very beginning. We are going to be launching a lot more community tools, which I'm super excited about. But yeah, so, so this was something from the very start. We, we wanted to make sure that people get more than just a utility tool. They get something a little extra.

Yeah, great. What kind of person do you imagine using Open Wardrobe? Fashion lovers, sustainability seekers, or a bit of both?

Uh, well, it's really for anyone, right? It's anyone who's interested in looking good, uh, feel good about what they wear, um, Whether you like to simply have access to a tool that helps you organize your closet and dress in the morning, or you want to learn more about style, or you want to find your unique look, or just get better at wearing what you already own. It's really for anyone. Sustainability is built into the platform, but we do not beat our users over the head with sustainability, right? Like, you need to be— no, it's really, you know, you want to be sustainable. We have all the tools for you in terms of sustainable closet. If you just want to get organized, we have that. If you are a number junkie and you want to know all the statistics about your wardrobe, your cost per wear, your utilization, how your investment balances against your use, we have all of that too. So, so it's really for anyone who cares.

Yeah, I actually see it as a way, um, because like you said, like if you go to the website, you're not, um, like it's mentioning the AI portion, but it's not saying like this is good for the planet, be green, like all of that. And I can see it as someone— you take an influencer, influencer who is buying way too many clothes that they'll ever probably wear, um, But they start using it like to be more organized or, you know, like keeping track of their clothes and making outfits to show to their followers. I know that they also a lot of times sell outfits maybe after they're done using them. So I see it as a way for them to start using it just for maybe selfish reasons., but ending up being more sustainable because of using it. Yeah. Which is awesome. Yeah.

So the, the end goal, and it is actually on our, um, our story page, is that the, our mission is to help, not completely prevent, but help reduce the number of clothing, clothes that goes on the landfill. Because if you use it regularly, you, Right? When you're done with it, if you can resell it, we have an integration with Poshmark. If you, let's say you have something and you love it, but it's broken or, you know, there's a hole or zipper's broke or something, you can repair it. You can alter it if your body changed. We have those integrations also. So it's, it's really all designed to, to, for that purpose. But as you said, it's not central message.

Yeah, absolutely. Because, um, I mean, fashion and sustainability, they aren't always best friends. Um, but like you, like you said, Open Wardrobe seems to kind of help bridge that gap. One of the favorite features that I found when I was perusing and uploading clothes and all of that stuff was the cost per wear. And you kind of mentioned that to see what benefit you're getting out of the money that you put in to what you've already bought. Have you seen these behavioral changes that we're kind of talking about in some of the users or the feedback that you're getting?

Yeah. So people— yeah, the feedback has been, has been overwhelming. The best messages were from people. So there was one woman said, I used to have a huge closet and always felt like I have nothing to wear. Now I have much smaller closet and can go a year without repeating an outfit. Another person said that we helped with her ADHD because when she looks at the app, It's everything is organized and she feels calmer. She doesn't get that stress about pulling clothes and figuring out an outfit. Another person said that we cured her shopping addiction because she gets the same dose of dopamine when she scrolls through her closet. So it's super interesting. Statistics are surprisingly popular. So people are very passionate about their cost per wear and about, um, so we, we have, um, this new section that is, that shows you where you spend the most, on which category you spend the most, and what you wear the most. So you can compare, like, oh, I invest most in, in coats, let's say, but do I wear coats as much as I wear something? So it's, it's also very interesting, kind of, you can balance your utilization against your investment. Um, so yeah, it's, it's very interesting how people are looking at their numbers. Um, we have, uh, it's another interesting thing is that we, um, just switched to a different user experience and the, what we call new experience is still being built. So we'll, we released it, as a trial, but not all features made it in there. We get emails like, this used to be here, now that's not there, I cannot find it anymore. So people are so passionate and I so appreciate it because it kind of gives me this reassurance that they're using it, they're, they're missing some of the things when they're not there.

That is some awesome feedback. I bet when you were creating this platform and everything, you weren't saying things like, I hope I can help people with their shopping addictions or their ADHD. That is, that's wild.

Not at all. It was not even, you know, not even on the horizon, right?

That's really cool.

Can you go a little more in depth on Lola AI? Is it classic AI? Is it Gen AI? Um, just talk a little bit more about The tech part?

Yeah, the classic is like, what, 5 years old? And so it's GenAI. So it has several things. So the first time you typically encounter LolAI quietly without knowing that this is LolAI is when you upload your item, because all you need to do is just take a picture, and then everything else is done for you. It recognizes that this is a dress, it's red, it has white polka dots and short sleeves, and all that metadata and all those attributes are added automatically for you. So that makes it super easy to digitize your closet. The second thing, um, uh, which is the most popular, is outfits. And, um, it shows up in two different ways. One is inside the app, so you can pick any item and ask Clo AI. We have like a little button, ask Clo AI, show me outfits, and it starts spitting out bunch and bunch of outfit combinations. Not all of them are perfect, but it's all designed to spark creativity in you. Because most of us, we buy something, let's say we buy a blouse, and when we buy it, we have in mind, oh, I'm gonna wear it with that skirt or that pair of pants. And typically, that's how we wear it and continue wearing it. And it's very rare for people to kind of venture beyond. That, right? So, so we are trying to spark your creativity about, uh, helping you visualize how it can look with other things in your closet.

Okay.

And the feedback, uh, that we've been getting from our users was exactly that. Um, so actually very recently somebody wrote to me, said, um, I downloaded your app, I digitized the closet, and I already am able to wear things that I have not worn before because I didn't know how to put them together with what. Another person said, I would have never paired this thing with that thing. I would have never thought about it. But when, when you showed it to me and I tried it on, I'm getting so many compliments, but my mind just naturally did not go there. So that is really just kind of going into, and we're We're perfecting it. We're not doing, um, outfit of the day for the weather, and people have been asking us for it, so that's probably going to be a thing that we're going to be working on next. But so far, it's, it's, it's really that. The second way it shows up is, um, when you are browsing for new clothes. Let's say you're going to, I don't know, Anthropologie website, right? Or any, any website where you like to shop. Let's say you're looking at a sweater or you're looking at a blouse. We have a browser extension. If you have it installed from any website, you can not only— obviously you can add it to your closet directly from a website, but that's normal. The cool thing is you can ask Lule AI, show me how do I wear it with what I already own. And what, what you have digitized, it starts showing you how that blouse and Anthropologie or Other Stories or Nordstrom or Macy's, whatever, uh, show, uh, can work with clothes that you have uploaded into the app. So that is really cool because when you're shopping now, you're stopping and thinking, does it fit into my closet? It gives you a little bit more ideas on how to— how you would wear it. And then you can visualize, speaking of sustainability, right? We know that sustainable items need to be worn about 30 times, right? That's a statistic. So 30 times, probably wearing it as the same outfit 30 times is boring, but when you see how you can combine it with many different things, now 30 becomes very achievable. So that's the second thing, the outfits. And then the third thing that Lola does is it's not available to everybody in the app yet, but, for, uh, our customers who went through, we have this product called Style Blueprint, and basically it analyzes your coloring, your body shape, your style personality, and just kind of really gives you a blueprint of this are, this is how you should wear colors, and this is how you should wear, which silhouettes suit you, which brands suit your personality, stuff like that. So if you go through that again in the browser extension, When you're shopping, you can ask, does it suit me? And it basically gives you, okay, this, it gives you like a verdict, yes, no, maybe. And then it explains why and it gives you styling suggestions. So if it's a maybe, especially for maybes, how do you style it to make it a yes? So this is something that is super cool. I myself love using this.

Just fun. Yeah. Is it telling you what shoes to wear with things? Because I feel like that's where I get stuck with some things is like a different, like different length skirts or pants. Like now we're doing like wide leg but like mid-calf pants and I'm like, I don't know what shoes to wear with this.

So whatever shoes you want, whatever you feel good at. So Lola AI is designed to together full outfits. So that's one, one of the things, because sometimes if you don't upload shoes, she's not going to return anything because part of the training was shoes. You have to wear shoes. You can't go barefoot. So yeah, so it's that, but it doesn't specifically tell you that with this pair of pants you must have— you must wear only wedges or whatever that is, right? Yeah. No, it's not as strict. Our philosophy is you need— you, you should wear whatever feels good on you, right? And then people, um, different people are very different in not only in their body shape and their coloring and their personality, but about what feels good on them, right? So, um, like theory tells us that, you know, women with blonde hair should not wear black It's theory, right? But then there are all kinds of practical tips, and there you go, that how to make black work. Because what if you work for Sephora and black is your uniform, right? So, but, but you can, you can do, um, you— there are ways you can make anything work, basically.

Do you see AI playing a major role in making fashion more sustainable, like in a larger sense?

You mean on the industry side? Yeah. Like for the— Absolutely. I mean, I work with brands that are implementing a lot of AI in their internal practices. Like supply chain is becoming not just automated, but smart. Um, uh, we have— we're seeing, well, we're— it's less AI, more kind of blockchain, but, um, you might have heard digital passports that, um, in Europe it's, it's a regulation now. So every garment that is leaving the factory has to have a digital passport. Typically it shows up in the form of a QR code on the label or some sort of a chip that the customer can scan and it'll tell you provenance of all of the raw materials, how it was made, all the traceability. So, so it's, it's been probably already 3, 4, 5 years, maybe even 3, 4 years in Europe since they passed that regulation. So it's becoming very prominent. And since if information is available, AI will work on, on top of it. AI needs data, right? So, a lot of brands are putting AI on top of their processes in, in manufacturing and in sourcing and even in selling. I mean, in selling it's been actually, we, we've seen, we've all seen AI when we shop, right? Like Amazon was one of the first that did recommendations. People who bought this also bought that, right? Or people who are looking at this or looking at that. That's, I mean, in those days we called it machine learning. It's basically just a type of AI, right?

It's not smart. We know that AI takes a lot of energy and resources to use it. So how is that balancing with like, we need to create sustainable products and like these, this service to become more sustainable, but we have to use resources. To do that. So how does that balance come into play? Like making a decision to make a sustainable product?

I guess every interview that I have about sustainability asks exactly this question, and my answer is this: you need to weigh pros and cons, right? You— let's say you are hungry and you need to go to the store to buy bread and milk. And the store is 5 miles away. You need to get in the car and you need to drive. That burns gas, right? And it produces some emissions, but you're hungry, you need to eat. So, right, you need to balance pros and cons. Yes, AI is very power hungry right now, but technology moves very quickly. And it'll probably become a little bit less power hungry. And we've seen already some models that are not as expensive to run in terms of energy and resources. So I'm hopeful that that'll be solved.

Yeah. It's also really hard to estimate because if you think of if this works in the way that you hope it does, where it's um, where fashion companies are producing less product that they don't— isn't going to be bought, I guess. Um, and then people aren't throwing away as much. Like, capturing the impact is so hard to see, um, how much you would be saving.

I guess you're absolutely right. If we can— how— if we're just talking about fashion right now, right? So if we can somehow, ideal world scenario, make the industry produce exactly what people want and just as many items as people will buy, that's the ideal scenario. It will never happen. But, but what we can do is we can reduce this overproduction. So the resources overall, the safe resources, are going to way more outweigh the energy consumption that there is.

All right. You also have repair and renew and resale features as part of the app. Why was it important to include those and how do they support circular fashion?

Well, it goes into our mission to reduce clothing that goes in the landfill, right? So if you're done with, with an item, it stops serving you for whatever reason, but it's still in a good condition, you want to resell it. We're making it just easier. We don't resell. Our platform is not a reseller. We have integration with Poshmark. More integrations will be coming soon. But it's very simple because everything is digitized, right? Your items are there, pictures are there. Our AI— oh, this is actually another thing that I did mention our Lolla AI can do is She pre-creates the listing and she suggests— well, I call her she, it, uh, it, uh, she's like a baby. She's a woman. Um, and it suggests, um, a resale price, um, in your market. It gives you a range, but, um, um, and it creates a listing. Basically all you need to do is you just need to click a button. It's like send it to my Poshmark account. And everything else is done with you, right? So you have to have a Poshmark account and you, you manage relationship with buyers and all of that. We're out of the picture as soon as that is done, but we make it super easy. So for, for repairs, if you buy something, let's say you bought something online or even in store and you like it, you love it, but you need to hem your trousers or, or sleeves are too long. Um, instead of returning it, which again takes resources, you know, logistics, all of that. We give you an opportunity to just send it for alteration. Or let's say it's an item that you love and something tore, or like a seam tore, or, or you have, you know, buttons you need to be replaced, or the zipper needs to be replaced. You can send it. It's very— again, it's very easy. Just say, I need to repair this item or alter this item. You choose the service Um, checkout, we send you a label, shipping is free both ways, takes about a week and it's done.

So the Poshmark integration is exciting because that's like, I've sold a lot of stuff on there, but it's always a pain to like take the pictures and then how do you describe it so that people want to buy it?

So that sounds awesome for you.

I love it when it takes the hard work out of it for me and makes it easy.

That is wonderful.

The easy button. We all— we talked about this decision fatigue and all of that. I think we need easy buttons for sure. Yeah. Okay. So kind of talking about the community around Open Wardrobe, it's not just a tool, it's a community like you said. So what role does that play, what that sense of connection play in helping people get engaged specifically with sustainability fashion?

Well, so one thing is if you are opening your wardrobe to your girlfriend or your sister who, with whom you naturally share clothes with, right? Like all of us have that. Those people in our lives, most of us, that is very easily shareable. Like, I don't have to physically go shop your closet. I can shop your closet on the app and I, oh, can I borrow this blouse because I need to go on a date or interview or whatever that is. The interesting thing that we found is mothers with little kids, friends who want to give away clothes, right? They, they share. It's very easy because kids grow up so quickly, and if you're not planning on having more babies, you're not gonna save it. So you just like— and typically your girlfriends or even siblings, sometimes they have kids at the same time or, you know, a few years apart. So giving away or sharing kids' clothes is becoming very easy. This way. And by the way, our app allows you to manage multiple wardrobes. So you can have one wardrobe for yourself, one wardrobe for your kid, one wardrobe for your husband, one wardrobe— or you can have multiple wardrobes for yourself. So we have people with multiple, multiple houses. So I— this woman, actually this morning I got a email, she was asking a question and she's like, I love this feature. Perfect for my two homes. I'm like, yeah, because she has the house number one closet, house number two closet, and she knows where, which clothes is where, and it's very easy. So, yeah, so sharing, sharing was part of it from the very conception. And it was really to, again, increase utilization. If you don't use it, somebody else might use it. So it's really to increase utilization. Um, we— that was completely organic and again, not something that I thought of from the beginning, but we started finding out, um, that personal stylists started using our app as their tool for for their work. So they're managing their clients' wardrobes in our tool, which was again very interesting. We are planning more community features. It's going to be a little bit more interactive and a little bit more helpful for some people, hopefully. So look out for it.

It's going to I love how you just described so many different lifestyles that can utilize this platform. I personally do not have two homes, but that's awesome that people can use it for that. But I'm thinking of, I mean, when I was in my college days, how helpful something like this would've been because we were always sharing clothes or my sister who has two kids. Who are teenagers now and how helpful this could have been growing up while they were growing up. But then also her teenage daughter is the same size as her. So now they can— I'm going to suggest this to them so she, my niece, can sit in bed and say, I'm going to borrow this from my mom because I see it in the app, right? It just, it crosses so many different lifestyles. I also love that you mentioned someone's husband because You don't often think about, you know, you, you would think primarily women would use this type of platform, but it can be utilized by men too. I mean, yeah, we have. Yeah, that's amazing. And honestly, my next question was going to be about how, you know, community has influenced this and you're just so good at this that you already answered my question. Because it has all of these features. So it's very impressive.

Thank you. Yeah, but to your question about community, so we started from the very beginning, we kind of got lucky and we got pretty loyal user base and very vocal user base. So they are writing with suggestions like, I want to see this feature or I need to be able to do this. Can you help me do that? And as I said, like when we switch to the new experience, it's not built out completely yet. They're like, oh, this went away. Where is this coming back? So, so, so community very much playing a huge role in, in shaping the app. So hopefully it's, it's going to continue that way because that's awesome.

So you've mentioned that there's a lot of upcoming things. That are happening with the app. So what partnerships or upcoming features are you especially excited about? So we're putting— that you could mention, I guess. I know that you don't probably want to advertise too much.

Yeah, well, a couple of things I will mention. So there is— we're putting a lot of effort into new— we call our Lola skills, new skills for our Lola AI. So I already mentioned Does it suit me? So that is, that is something I'm excited about. And then the next one is, should I buy it? Because two completely different questions, right? Should I buy it? That doesn't— not only looks at does it suit you, but what do you already have? Does it fill a gap, or do you have 5 other things that are just like this? So it's, um, I think it's very, very interesting. I'm excited about that. So it's more ways, more tools for people to stop and think before buying something new.

I just thought of something when I go to digitize my wardrobe and I find that I have like 5 black t-shirts that I don't need. But does it identify that like, hey, should you think about like getting rid of these, or like you have duplicates of this type of shirt?

Uh, not in this current version, but it's coming. Okay. So it's part of our wardrobe audit feature that we're going to be launching. So it'll identify your, um, what we call hidden gems. Uh, it will identify your most valuable things, like the working horses of your wardrobe, so to speak. It'll identify the duplicates and all other things. And if you went through our style blueprint, then it'll identify which part of your closet kind of, quote unquote, I'm going to do air quotes because, fits your style blueprint. Because as I said, it's just a guideline. It's not like hard rules that you have to follow.

Yeah. I think I'm going to embarrass myself whenever I do this.

I'm like, what I have in my closet. Yeah, the new feature is definitely going to tell me you need to buy more colorful items.

You don't have to anything, Jessica. You— nobody, nobody has to do anything that doesn't make you feel good. I am not a huge person. Um, if you look at my wardrobe, most of it is very monochromatic, so it's, it's lots of black. I have lots of gray, and then I have pops of color. So I have— my favorite, favorite is red. I learned that only certain shades of red look good on me, which is completely true, and I couldn't figure out for the life of me why some reds look good until I learned the theory behind it. But, um, so I do have red and I have some, some blue, and that's pretty much it. So I'm not like— I don't like prints, I don't like loud stuff. So again, it's all about what makes you feel good, right? You don't, you don't have to buy color if you don't want to. And if you like neutrals, there are neutrals that look good with your—

we did an episode where we talked a lot about a time capsule wardrobe, and to me that's kind of what you're describing, which is amazing. That's always been my, my goal is to have that because It's with this tool, I could create so many outfits.

Capsules work for some people, they don't work for other people. It's really very personal preference. For me, I find, for me personally, again, it's all personal preference. For me personally, I find more kind of outfit formulas that work for me more than capsules because it gives me a little bit more freedom. I don't need to make sure that everything goes together with everything else. I just kind of have my, my formulas, and that's how I do it.

That's a really good way to look at it. I am glad you mentioned that. Speaking of your wardrobe, do you have a favorite item, one that maybe has a great story behind it?

It's actually funny. Yes, I do. I have several. I don't have just one favorite item, but I'll mention one, and that one, it is 22 years to the day. I wear it a lot. So it was, uh, so it has a story behind it. Um, I, um, when I finished business school, I went to school in France, and when I finished it, a friend of mine came and we went to Paris, and we were passing by this amazing Kenzo boutique, and we walked in And I decided to treat myself because I just graduated, you know, like it's going to be a gift for me, for myself. It was obscene amount of money for me at the time. Took me a long time to pay off the credit card. But I bought 4 items, 5 items, and among them was this amazing skirt. Which I wore and then I stopped wearing it, kind of stopped wearing it. And I, it was in my closet probably a few years that I didn't even touch it. And then when we launched the app and I started playing with Loli AI, it started recommending me outfits with that skirt. And I'm like, oh, I need to pull out that skirt. And the amazing, and I have a picture somewhere, I'm gonna send it to you. I have a picture. And then I went to my business school reunion a couple years ago and I wore that skirt and it was just an event. I wore the outfit that Lola I recommended and couple of people came up to me and they're like, are you in the fashion industry? I'm like, why? How do you know? Like, why? Like the way you dressed. Like that was not the intention, but apparently it had that effect. So anyway, so that skirt I love.

I wear it all the time now.

That's awesome. Final question. If you could give one piece of advice to someone who wants to start dressing more sustainably, where should they begin?

I would say the easiest way without like tools or anything like that, do a closet audit. And the easy thing is, just go in and pull items that you wear on repeat and just lay them out and look at them because they will tell you a lot about your style personality, what colors you like, what silhouettes you like. You'll see it like all right there. And then you just start with that because you start with what you— since you wear them all the time, you probably love it and you probably feel good in it. Right? And you start with that, and everything else you just edit out from there.

It's a really good piece of advice.

All right, or start using our tools, or use Open Wardrobe.

Uh, that's awesome. So every episode, um, we like to give our listeners a next green thing. It can be a, a tool, it can be a motto, it can be an event. And this week we would like to do next green thing as go check out Open Wardrobe. So, um, specifically for us and our listeners, so it can help you in your sustainable fashion journey. Um, and correct me if I'm wrong, Julia, but there are different options as far as membership is concerned, there is a, a free version, there is a monthly version that comes with more features, and then there's also a yearly paid membership option.

That's correct, right? Yeah, so free version will probably get you started on your way for a very long time. So free version, you can have unlimited wardrobes, unlimited items, unlimited outfits. So all of that is free. The monthly and yearly membership is pretty much the same thing. It's just paid upfront with a huge discount or paid monthly, and it does have more features like, you know, the resale value, retention value, some extra statistics, um, uh, Lull AI on demand, you know, stuff like that. We do have also a lifetime membership, which is one-time payment, includes all current and future premium features, and it includes Style Blueprint. And Style Blueprint you can also buy separately, which is also one-time purchase, and you can redo it as many times as you need. Because if you change your hair color or your body changes, you might need a refresh. So, and you can do it as many times as you want.

Okay, all good options to help Find the possibilities in reusing and repurposing what you already own. So everybody go check it out. Thank you so much, Julia, for joining us and talking about all things open wardrobe.

Thank you for having me.