Did Google Just Kill Your Startup?
This week's All Things Fashion Tech Newsroom: Google Photos releases digital wardrobe feature, Bezos launched an Earth Fund and GameStop looks to purchase eBay.
Quick Headlines
Google released a new way to create a digital wardrobe from your Google Photos
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit teams up with LTK
Bezos Earth Fund Channels $34 Million to Sustainable Fashion Tech
GameStop to buy eBay for $56 billion?
Textile Recycling Hits Tipping Point as SuperCircle Scales Circular Solutions
A new way to create a digital wardrobe from your Google Photos
Getting dressed is about to get easier, no matter how full your closet is. To help streamline your “nothing to wear” mornings — and evenings and vacations — a new Google Photos feature will soon catalog the clothes you’re wearing in photos and create a digital closet that puts your wardrobe at your fingertips.
Your wardrobe, now organized with help from AI
The new wardrobe feature in Google Photos uses AI to automatically create a dedicated “wardrobe” collection based on pieces of clothing that appear in your photos library. It will give you an organized view of your wardrobe from from your past photos, where you can:
Filter by category. Look at everything together, or dive deeper into a single category — e.g., jewelry, tops or bottoms — then scroll to rediscover long-forgotten items that might still be buried in your closet.
Create outfits with ease. Mix and match items of clothing to create outfits, then share them with friends or save them on a digital moodboard. You can have separate moodboards for different occasions, e.g., summer weddings, a trip to Italy, work outfits.
Try on looks, virtually. See how an outfit will look on you before you get dressed. Select individual pieces, then click “Try it on” for a preview.
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Brings Iconic Swim and Resort Style to Fans Year-Round, Powered by LTK
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit and LTK, the platform built for trusted recommendations, today announced a new partnership that brings Sports Illustrated Swimsuit’s iconic swim and resort style to fans year-round through shoppable experiences in the LTK app, across its social platforms, and on its own website.
Launching alongside the highly anticipated annual issue, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit’s official profile on the LTK app will create a new destination for fans to discover and shop style inspired by their favorite talent, editorial features, and cultural moments throughout the year. At the same time, LTK will power shoppability across Sports Illustrated Swimsuit’s social content, helping turn its influence into a more direct shopping experience wherever audiences engage with the brand.
For over 60 years, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit has defined swim style and created some of the most talked-about cultural and fashion moments. Now, through LTK, that influence will extend beyond the issue itself into an always-on experience where fans can instantly shop the looks behind Sports Illustrated Swimsuit’s most iconic shoots and viral moments.
The partnership marks Sports Illustrated Swimsuit’s first move into social commerce, selecting LTK as the infrastructure partner to help turn its editorial authority into ongoing discovery, engagement and shopping. By combining an official presence in the LTK app with shopping powered across its social platforms, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit is creating a year-round destination for fans to engage with and shop its signature style.
Bezos Earth Fund Channels $34 Million to Sustainable Fashion Tech
By Kenny Fisher
The Bezos Earth Fund announced plans to grant $34 million to support the development of next-generation sustainable fabrics, aimed at reducing the environmental impact of the global fashion industry.
The Bezos Earth Fund was founded in 2020, with a $10 billion philanthropic commitment from Jeff Bezos, aimed at funding scientists, activists, NGOs and others driving solutions to fight climate change and protect nature. The fund has provided over 230 grants to date, allocating approximately $2 billion, and aims to fully disburse the $10 billion pledge by 2030.
The new grants include:
Columbia University, in partnership with Fashion Institute of Technology, receiving $11.5 million to develop biodegradable textile fibers produced from bacteria fed on agricultural waste, designed to be strong, flexible, and breathable, while requiring minimal land use and avoiding microplastic pollution.
University of California, Berkeley, awarded $10 million to develop high-performance biodegradable fibers inspired by spider silk, with research collaboration from Stanford University and California Institute of Technology.
Clemson University, receiving $11 million to apply gene editing and synthetic biology to develop new cotton varieties with built-in color, improved performance, and greater resilience, in collaboration with University of Georgia.
The Cotton Foundation, awarded $1.5 million to support restoration of a publicly accessible, non-GMO cotton seedbank to enable ongoing development of improved cotton varieties.
GameStop makes bold $56 billion play for eBay, ready to go hostile
GameStop proposed on Sunday to buy eBay Inc for about $56 billion in a cash-and-stock deal, with CEO Ryan Cohen saying he was prepared to take the bid directly to shareholders should eBay's board be unreceptive.
GameStop - once a stock market minnow that shot to fame during a meme-stock frenzy five years ago - is offering to pay $125 a share in a 50-50 mix of cash and stock, Cohen said in a letter to eBay’s board. Based on eBay’s Friday close, the bid represents a premium of about 20%.
EBay has a market capitalization nearly four times larger than GameStop, making the buyout bid an ambitious attempt.
The U.S. videogame retailer has already built up a 5% stake in eBay through shares and derivatives, Cohen said in the letter, which was seen by Reuters.
Its unsolicited offer to buy the U.S. online marketplace was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, citing an interview with CEO Cohen, also GameStop’s largest investor.
Cohen, who is pushing to boost the struggling videogame retailer’s market value more than tenfold, told the Journal that putting eBay and GameStop under one roof would create huge opportunities to improve earnings and cut costs.
“It could be a legit competitor to Amazon,” Cohen said about eBay to the Journal.
Textile Recycling Hits Tipping Point as SuperCircle Scales Circular Solutions
By Angela Velasquez
SuperCircle is chipping away at its goal to divert more than 1 billion individual textile products from landfills by 2030.
At Sourcing Journal’s “Road to 2030: Dealing With Detours” forum in New York City last week, Stuart Ahlum, cofounder and chief operating office of SuperCircle, explained how the company sits at the intersection between the retail sector and the end-of-life or reuse sector.
The enterprise workflow platform routes textiles collected from a wide and fragmented inventory spread across the retail supply chain including returns, distribution centers, stores, logistics fleets and postconsumer trade-in.
“We’re strong at sorting and organizing this material,” he said. While traditionally — and still in many parts of the supply chain — this work is manual, with people physically handling products and visually sorting them, SuperCircle is shifting that model by using tools like near-infrared (NIR) and hyperspectral imaging (HSI), along with integrations into PLM systems to pull digital bills of material.
Artificial intelligence built in-house allows the New York City-based company to react not only to what’s happening within its own facilities and within its partners’ facilities, but also how to react to what’s happening downstream, when capacity or demand-and-matching changes. This kind of “high-velocity and high-fidelity” sorting, he added, has been valuable for the recycling market, especially as feedstocks are hyper specialized.
Reformation, J.Crew, Guess and Parachute are among SuperCircle’s brand partners. Though many brands are waiting for legislation to mandate textile recycling plans, Ahlum said it is crucial to have their involvement to drive participation. What’s been important for growth is clearly demonstrating that value to brands. He said that includes helping them acquire and retain customers through trade-in programs, increase store traffic, and unlock supply chain efficiencies. There are also financial advantages, like tax incentives, improved recovery rates, and stronger overall supply chain performance.
SuperCircle has recycled 10 million textiles to date. Ahlum said it’s a “strong through point that not only does the system, the technology and the business model work, but that we can do this at scale for large enterprise clients.”
More Headlines
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Vivienne Westwood and CLO launch competition straddling fashion and virtual design
FAUME partnered with MCM WORLDWIDE to launched their branded resale program
Wow the audacity from GameStop