New York-based fash­ion ecom­merce start­up Bib + Tuck has just launched its first app, short­ly after a $600,000 seed fund­ing injec­tion. Ecom­merce ana­lysts inter­est­ed in up-and-com­ing ideas might do well to lis­ten to this ris­ing company’s story.

Bridg­ing fast with luxury

Found­ed in Novem­ber 2012 by fel­low New York­ers Sari Azout and Sari Bib­liow­icz (who are hap­py to be called “Sari A.” and “Sari B.”), Bib + Tuck’s mis­sion is to bridge the gulf between those who opt for “fast fash­ion” out­lets like Thread­flip and those who pre­fer high­er-end lux­u­ry outlets.

Both Saris are self-con­fessed “shopa­holics” who built Bib + Tuck because it answered their own fash­ion needs: as young pro­fes­sion­als, they didn’t have a big bud­get to pur­chase the items they most desired. Vogue high­light­ed the start-up in 2011 as some­thing to watch — and most ecom­merce ana­lysts would prob­a­bly agree that it was right.

Begin­ning as an “invite only” com­mu­ni­ty, Bib + Tuck open its vir­tu­al doors to the pub­lic this sum­mer. And now the app: the two Saris are clear that they were always aim­ing for an Insta­gram-type feel for it, with a shop­pable aspect thrown in.

The app lets users add prod­uct infor­ma­tion and image fil­ters, and it allows them to search accord­ing to a raft of cri­te­ria includ­ing brand, price, cat­e­go­ry and con­di­tion. It also lets users mes­sage one anoth­er, which the founders say not only makes trans­ac­tions smoother, it helps build a com­mu­ni­ty ambience.

Trans­paren­cy

Users now have an updat­ed list of brands they can trade with, which now includes design­ers like Open­ing Cer­e­mo­ny, Acne and Alexan­der Wang. How­ev­er, there’s also a list of brands the start­up rejects, which include Old Navy, H&M and Forever21.

Using some of its seed fund­ing to hire a cre­ative direc­tor with­out delay, chiefly to aug­ment its ecom­merce offer­ings with entic­ing edi­to­r­i­al con­tent, ecom­merce ana­lysts might agree that Bib + Tuck lost no time in devel­op­ing its brand. And that includes a rep­u­ta­tion for trans­paren­cy: no hid­ing behind opaque avatars here. Azout says:

“When you’re buy­ing some­thing, you’re look­ing at who’s sell­ing it. What does that per­son do? You’re get­ting insight into that person’s world… You know that this jack­et is from a musi­cian in LA, and she wore it on tour, and she’s let­ting it go and wants some­one else to appre­ci­ate it.”