LOOKBOOK.nu is an online community which allows members to upload photos of self created fashion looks, to tag the brand of the clothing and to hype (vote) others looks thereby increasing karma (reputation). So from a network economics and participatory psychology approach LOOKBOOK.nu ticks the boxes and has consequently grown into a considerable fashion presence. (Attention economy and social media/network theorists such as Yochai Benkler would love this.)

The standard of the ‘looks’ and creations on LOOKBOOK.nu rivals even the best of current fashion photography and professional creations. Go look if you don’t believe me. This crowd sourcing, consumer generated content approach to fashion blogging draws in social groups across the spectrum, think preppy, fashionista, hipster, & scene kid, they are all there with their dedicated followers. From each ‘look’ it is possible to click through to the retailer, to search looks according to colour, brand or style.

That LOOKBOOK.nu is home to a 200,000 member strong community and a global worldwide readership of over 3.5 million unique visitors per month indicates that this resource is worth unfathomable value to the retail and fashion industries. And of course they have begun to realise this.

Gap for example has been running a competition through LOOKBOOK.nu Team Skinny Vs. Flare which called for members to post looks declaring their team (including Gap clothing of course) the prizes awarded are in the hundreds of dollars and Gap uses the images in their upcoming advertising campaign. Mass exposure of Gap products, masses of traffic generation,  free fashion shots, sounds like a whole lot of free work to me.

I am really interested to talk with LOOKBOOK.nu about the ins-and-outs of their model, the possibilities of revenue generation are many with this site, exciting. Well done Jason Su and Yuri Lee.

MakerBot have announced that their Botcave™ Retail Store in Brooklyn will open on November 26th. This is a physical retail space that will retail MakerBotsand Arduinos as well as kits from Adafruit, Evil Mad Science, Jimmie Rodgers, Sparkfun and Liquidware.

This reflects increasingly obvious emergence of retail and commercially focused models growing around open source, crowd-sourcing, social product design and citizen led approaches. [Perhaps better understood as citizen/retail/production models.] Examples include Ponoko, Shapeways, Nervous Systems and perhaps most obviously DOIY and Quirky.com.

Here innovation is observed in the research, design, supply chain, production and distribution mechanisms employed. Quirky, for example, employs crowd sourced (social) product design, research and development. This is complemented by a pull production system, requiring a predetermined level of sales before products are actually produced. This low risk (agile, pull) approach is an interesting development for production and retail of consumer goods.

My research has been looking at models such as these for some time and in doing so I have found many failures and obviously sub-standard models. While it is early for such models it is obvious that Quirky (for one) is something to watch out for.

For the models that didn’t survive or are destined for the retail administration/bankruptcy graveyard I suggest that their primary failings or short comings are related to the client/citizen side interaction, how the citizen/consumer interacts with the model, the effort required, barriers to participation, incentive to participate and a simple lack of consumer awareness.

My forth-coming paper* with Dr. Leon Cruickshank begins to address the client/citizen side of such models through consideration of the role of design as applied to such models. We suggest that through appropriate service design, design of (citizen) processes, provision of toolkits, design or supply of proto-designs** these citizen/retail/production model will be substantially enhanced. (Throw IoT into this mix and we have a perfect storm.)

Retail kids WAKE UP!

>>More to come<<

*SVID 2010
**Related to the known concepts of unfinished, modular and under-design.