PlatformClothing is going custom.
The software hasn’t.
The Style Lab is the platform for brands that make things to order — clothing, accessories, jewelry. Catalogue, styling intelligence, manufacturing and payments in one system.
Commerce software sells what already exists.
What it assumes
- A product on a shelf
- A price and a quantity
- A shopper alone with a screen
- The job is done when the money clears
What made to order needs
- No shelf, no quantity
- An instruction detailed enough to make from
- A stylist and a client, together
- The order is where the work begins
Plenty of brands belong in the first column. No amount of configuration turns one into the other, which is why brands making to order run the real work on spreadsheets and email.
Custom needed its own platform.
Software for what doesn’t exist yet. Four systems that have to know about each other, because in made to order they are not separable.
Catalogue
Describes what you actually make
One page holding every variation you can manufacture, each with its own availability, measurements and specification.
Styling intelligence
Settles fit, color and size first
Her colors read from a photograph. Materials scored for her and for the piece. Size from her measurements, not a chart.
Manufacturing
Turns an order into an instruction
Tech packs generated from the order. Production tracked per piece, so a twelve-piece order has twelve states.
Payments
Keeps you the merchant of record
Your account, your name on her statement, your money. We take a platform fee and never hold customer funds.
One model
A necklace built to order is the same problem as a trouser built to order.
One product page
Claire, a trouser
Choices that change what is made
- Rise
- Leg
- Waist
- Fabric
36
manufacturable variations
Each with its own materials, measurements and pattern. The shopper sees one product. The maker is told exactly one thing.
A trouser is a rise, a leg, a waist, a pocket and a fabric. A necklace is a chain, a pendant, a length and a metal. Fewer axes, same model.
Garments are the hardest case, which is why we built for them first. Accessories and jewelry sit comfortably inside a system designed for something harder.
From her measurements to her door, in one system.
01
Order
Variation, material, color, size, her lengths
02
Tech pack
Generated, not retyped
03
Pattern
Reused if it exists, made once if not
04
Production
Tracked per piece, through QC
05
Delivered
To her, in her measurements
Why it gets stronger
Made to order usually gets more expensive with every order. Here it gets cheaper.
The pattern library fills
The same style, material, size and lengths always resolve to the same pattern, so a maker is told when one can be reused. The hundredth order costs less to make than the tenth.
The client record travels
Measured once, profiled once, read by every brand she buys on the platform. Which is why a second brand is worth more to the platform than the first.
What working together looks like
01
We model your catalogue
Your line built into families and variations, with materials, measurements and options. We do this with you.
02
You keep it current
New pieces through your own admin tools. The recommendations stay sharp only if the catalogue does.
03
Stylists carry your line
Sold to clients they have already measured and profiled. You stay merchant of record throughout.
Who we build for
Made for
- Clothing, accessories or jewelry made to order or in configurable variations
- Brands selling through stylists, fittings, trunk shows or appointments
- Finished-goods brands wanting the catalogue and manufacturing tools alone
Not made for
- Promotion-driven mass market
- High volume, deep discounting, a wide and shallow catalogue
- A different business that wants different software. We would rather say so.
For stylists
One client relationship, however many brands you carry.
Measure and profile a client once. Her fit, colors and preferences stay with her across every line on the platform, so adding a brand does not mean starting her file again. Invitation only.
Sold in person
Style Lab studios run on this platform.
A stylist can open a physical Style Lab location. The first is in Minnesota and more are planned, and the stylists working from them profile clients and process orders on this platform.
For a brand, that means a line here can be sold in a room with the client in it, not only by independent stylists working remotely. The studios are a separate company that shares the name.
Live today
Arava is the first brand on the platform.
Made-to-order womenswear, sold through stylists. Storefront, client accounts, stylist tools, admin and factory portal all run here. Orders travel the whole path from a fitting to a delivered garment, and live payments are on.
Let’s talk.
Putting a line on the platform, or backing what we are building — either way the next step is a conversation.