Sarah Curran, CEO of online retailer my-wardrobe.com, is becoming one of the most successful faces behind e-tailers.

My-Wardrobe.com is a solely online store, offering the customer accessible luxury products, stocking designers ranging from Marc Jacobs to Vivienne Westwood. Sarah has worked her way up to this position from her experience as a North London, luxury boutique owner. After spotting a gap in the market for accessible luxury products online, Sarah decided it was time to migrate online.

MFN spent Five minutes with Sarah to find out a little bit more about the woman behind my-wardrobe.com...

How did you get into the industry and how has it changed over the years?

After starting my boutique Powder in Crouch End, I realised the opportunity to grow our retail business online.   The online fashion market provided either high end luxury and fast fashion, but no one was positioned in the middle offering an accessible luxury price point.   We launched my-wardrobe.com in April 2006 offering carefully selected pieces from the collections of attainable designers such as Mulberry, Anya Hindmarch, Paul Smith and D&G.   Over the last few years, we have seen the online industry evolve with established fashion brands and retailers embracing online as a new channel, which in turn has driven more shoppers online.   With more retailers in the online space, it has made every e-commerce business concentrate on improving their service and looking at innovation making it a very exciting place to be.

 
You recently gave a talk with The Fashion Network in London - do you feel it is important to pass on your expertise to others?

I feel incredibly proud to be invited to speak at events and also very inspired to listen to other entrepreneurs and CEOs who are speaking.   There are so many people who have amazing ideas, but don’t know how to make the first steps in creating a product or starting a business, so I hope that I can give them the confidence to embrace the challenge in taking their idea to the next level.

 
Being an online company you are able to reach people across the world. However, do you think that fashion in England is very London-centric?

I think that it’s very easy for a fashion brand to naturally become London centric.   London is a fashion hub, hosting London Fashion Week and two of the biggest fashion colleges and also being the centre of the media and fashion houses.   Brands need to realise that there is a huge opportunity outside of London, which is why we are investing in building the awareness of my-wardrobe.com in the regions of the UK.

 

Do you think that online publications, shops and blogs are the future for the fashion industry?

We are literally just scratching the surface of online.   With brands such as Burberry streaming their shows live on the internet and Conde Nast creating versions of their publications specifically for the iPad, the media landscape is changing dramatically.  There will always be a place for the high street and key fashion publications as they are in the DNA of our culture as shoppers, but brands need to understand how the online world is evolving and how they should embrace it.

 

We've heard rumours of my-wardrobe.com pop up shops. Do you feel it is important for online brands to have a retail presence as well?

We recently launched a pop-up menswear Denim Bar in London’s Carnaby Street to celebrate the launch of our online Denim Bar.   It was a huge success and our first foray into a physical environment for the my-wardrobe.com brand.   This is something that we are looking to regionalise, bringing the my-wardrobe.com brand to different cities to provide an experiential touch point for the brand.    Every online brand has its own objectives, but being able to see and speak to your customer in the physical form has enabled us to have a greater understanding of our customer and what they want to see from us.

With thanks to the my-wardrobe.com team and Sarah Curran. Look out for more interviews with the my-wardrobe.com staff in coming weeks!

Don't forget, tickets are still available for our event "An Audience with Sarah Curran and Lauren Stevenson of my-wardrobe"

To take a look at my-wardrobe.com, visit the website.

Words and interview by Clare Potts.

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