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| The cover for my fashfix closet! Wonder who's gonna be my first buyer :-)! |
Anyone who has visited Chez Bonjour will know that my apartment’s second bedroom basically doubles as a walk-in wardrobe. It basically houses a bed (which I’m lobbying to remove!) and the important stuff – mainly racks, rows and bags of clothes of which half I hardly wear anymore.
And in case you’re wondering, yes I do wake up most days and feel like I have nothing to wear! While donating boxes of unwanted clothes to charity is something I’m keen on doing (related story coming up next week!), there are some items which are too pretty to let go of and I’d rather see someone else wear them.
Having a stall in flea markets is one option (also helps to fund some more shopping ;-)) but why bother and sit in the sun all day when you can sell your stuff from home at the newly-launched fashion exchange site fashfix.sg?
Fashfix is the brainchild of Vivien Chia, a Singapore-based entrepreneur who has come to the rescue for like-minded (i.e shopaholic) people like myself who want to clean out their closet stylishly. And like they say, someone’s trash can be someone else’s treasure so I decided to try it for myself to start with.
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| Love this colourful skirt but time to let go... |
I’ve done something similar before when I was living in Dubai and sold some my unwanted clothes on ebay and souk.com, but the beauty of fashfix is that it is it is exclusively for fashion items. Also in a small place like Singapore, delivering the items can be much more convenient.
Vivien paid me a visit last week and we dug in my ‘unwanted’ boxes and took photos of the items I want to sell. I have my own page (called closet) on the site now and anyone can buy the pieces I uploaded. Warning though, there are some serious colours in there!
Meanwhile there’s no one better than Vivien herself to tell you more about fashfix in this small Q&A.
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| This dress and all the other pix in this post are part of the stuff I'm selling on fashfix! More items on my closet's page here |
Q: What is fashfix and how does it work?
Fashfix is a community cum marketplace for girls to showcase as well as buy and sell their fashion.
Essentially we catalogue all of your clothes in your own virtual wardrobe so it makes it super easy to share your style as well as buy and sell your clothes once you get sick of them!
Because we virtually store all your clothes and purchases on the site, if you want to sell something you bought on Fashfix because it didn't fit when it arrived, because you wore it once for a party and you therefore cannot wear it again, because you just want to change it up or what not! The picture, description etc will already be inside your wardrobe so all you need to do is relist it. You buy some, you sell some, and the entire community contributes to everybody’s wardrobes!
It is literally like having your own infinite virtual walk-in wardrobe!
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| Fashfix founder Vivien, wearing an unwanted skirt from fashfix! Some seriously awesome stuff on there!!! |
Q: You studied law, so how did you end up in fashion?
I got really into fashion when I was about 17 - back then I would keep a watch out for every single season and collections from all the designers and my parents would get me old vogues when they came back from trips overseas! (:
Even going to Hong Kong to study business and law was sort of a compromise between making a rational and reasonable decision and just my general frivolousness - HK had better shopping than Singapore PLUS the fact that they have winter means I would actually be able to dress up in layers!
So after doing a couple of boring internships I decided that law was not for me and packed up and came back to Singapore to pursue my passion. I was also really lucky because what started out as a germ of an idea really spread wings after an acquaintance introduced me to another acquaintance who randomly suggested I join the NTU Ideas Inc. competition! I wrote up the business plan over 2 very late nights, submitted it, presented it to a panel of 7 male judges (I was freaking out at this point - how would 7 GUYS understand this super GIRL-centric problem!!) but somehow they did and I was selected as one of the top 15 teams and since then its been a rollercoaster ride!
Q: What inspired you to start fashfix? How does it relate to you?
It was really a random conversation I had with an old secondary school friend over coffee. We were having a heated discussion about, what else, shopping and in particular shopping online.
The more we talked the more problems popped up! Like my friend complaining about paying astronomical sums on postage when returning her ASOS purchases; Me being super broke but still wanting to buy new clothes; Her wanting to shop online but being worried that the clothes wouldn't fit!
So basically - I just took all of these fashion related problems my friends and I had and decided that I was going to fix them - hence the name Fashfix!
It is funny because every time I tell friends about my new company they always say it is a perfect match. I used to join a ton of business strategy competitions for the fun of it so starting my own company and being my own boss was definitely a natural progression. Add to the fact that I also LOVE fashion – it’s sort of a no brainer that I would start a business to do with fashion!
Q: Who are your target audience?
You know that moment when you wake up in the morning, open your wardrobe, see packed racks of clothes and go "oh shit, I have nothing to wear!"
If you know it, you're our target audience!
Q: Where do you see fashfix in the future?
The vision I have for Fashfix is quite simply - because fashion is fickle. Like what Heidi Klum always says on Project Runway "one day you're in, the next day you're out". I genuinely think it is really tough for a girl to be as fickle as fashion demands of them (although I do think most of us rise up to the challenge honorably!!)
So my dream for Fashfix is to build up a great community of girls who LOVE fashion and Fashfix empowering them to fully embrace that love.
Really, it is to give girls the freedom to buy a Samantha-Jones-Fabulous dress for $500, wear it once to a party, have Everybody compliment her on it, and then, because she (obviously!) can never wear it again, to be able to easily resell it on Fashfix to someone else who's gonna love the compliments as much as she did!
P.S. fashfix.com is in beta launch stage now but you can start selling/shopping by requesting an invite on the site itself. For every item sold, you only pay S$1!!!!
I’m giving away S$50 worth of fashfix credit (to be used to sell 50 items) for the reader who tells me why she needs to clear her closet the most! Answer in the comments section or on the Bonjour Singapore Facebook page this week
Note that at the moment only ladies clothes listings are accepted (no accessories or shoes), so dig those frocks lying in the back of your closet and start making some space (and money)!
