VIDA, a new e-commerce platform that aims to connect shoppers directly with ethically produced apparels and accessories designed by artisans and designers from around the world, has been launched recently.
With a primary aim to provide means to earn a living for designers and artists who are involved in different stages of the production process, the web store will offer reasonably priced clothing for the urban, fashion savvy yet socially responsible women shoppers.
The website currently features more than 75 individual designs across five product categories including a 100 percent silk made short-sleeve top, a silk sleeveless dress top and an array of cashmere-modal blend scarves, pure modal scarves and square silk scarves.
The company follows a unique manufacturing model with tools and methods like fabric digital printing technology and working directly with textile mills and factories that help cutting down the cost of production and benefits both the customers and designers.
The online store’s latest line up includes painters, photographers, graphic designers, sculptors, architects, textile artists and print designers. The names are Elle magazine’s new Swedish talent, Emma Lundgren, Vogue.com’s young finds Cigdem Keskin (Turkey) and Tokyo-based milliner Honoyo Imai. The company’s manufacturing team includes the Karachi-based fashion houses- Sania Maskatiya and FNKAsia.
The San Francisco-based VIDA brings the artists, producers and consumers from across the globe on one platform with a target to ensure that craftspeople at every level are paid a living wage.
The firm has gathered a sum of $1.3M seed funding, which will be used for recruiting and product development purposes, from its investors Google Ventures, The Valley Fund, Universal Music Group, Nanon and Don Mattrick’s Beehive Holdings, Dave Morin’s Slow Ventures and Jesse Draper. (PB)
