TRUSS

We talked to the Creative Director of Dr Martens, Darren Leon Mckoy for the TRUSS YouTube. In this insightful conversation, Darren shares his unique journey into fashion, the creative processes driving the brand's success, and the importance of balancing creativity with business strategy. He discusses Dr Martens' rich cultural heritage, its timeless appeal, and how strategic collaborations push creative boundaries. Darren also reflects on sustainability in fashion, predicting a shift towards simplification and authenticity. It was great to connect with a leading figure in the fashion industry who’s on a winning streak with countless collaborations and new directions for the esteemed boot company. https://lnkd.in/euU_uzxX

Exciting News about Sustainable Fashion and AI We are thrilled to announce the launch of TRUSS, a business founded by four friends from University of Warwick, dedicated to transforming the second-hand clothing market through the power of artificial intelligence (AI). TRUSS has secured a £1.1 million grant to develop AI algorithms that will revolutionise how people and businesses buy and sell pre-loved clothes. The technology will help automate the sale of second-hand clothes, providing sellers on Depop with suggested pricing, product recommendations, and an enhanced customer experience. Buyers can look forward to more professional, standardised listings and more relevant search results. "Every item holds a story, but unlocking its value is a laborious process marked by online research and manual data entry. Our mission is to empower resale businesses with instant access to rich, actionable data," says Woody Lello, CEO of TRUSS and Institute for Global Sustainable Development (IGSD), University of Warwick alumni. Selfridges, with its goal of achieving 45% circular transactions by 2030, is partnering with the team to avoid the manual evaluation of each piece of clothing. Ella Gould, Head of Sustainability and Innovation at Selfridges, expressed her excitement about working with TRUSS as part of the Innovate UK AI Grant to create meaningful, long-term change for the fashion industry. At Depop, Alice Jacques, Director of Machine Learning, emphasised their belief that "everything you want already exists" and highlighted the importance of encouraging more people to choose second-hand instead of new. This is just the beginning. Our AI technology has the potential to transform other industries like second-hand watches and furniture, making the buyer experience seamless and efficient. Together, we're paving the way for a more sustainable and innovative future in fashion. Elena Korosteleva David Plumb Rachael Kirwan Rachel Moseley Oliver Walmsley Adela Glyn-Davies Penny Triantafillou James Dayus Anthony Avery Jane Webb Woody Lello Ella Gould Alice Jacques #Sustainability #AI #Innovation #SecondHandFashion #CircularEconomy #TechForGood #TRUSS #Depop #Selfridges #FashionRevolution #WarwickAlumni

This week, I had the pleasure of presenting at Bank of America Merrill Lynch to support their work experience program. Students were given imaginary businesses, and I was tasked with providing insights into creating a deck that effectively tells the story of these businesses. Here are a few key points that go beyond the typical deck structure: 🥰 The Deck is the Dating Profile, the Meeting is the Date: Your deck’s primary goal is to secure a meeting where you can truly shine and delve into details. The job of the deck is to intrigue enough to get that meeting. Just like a dating profile, you don’t say everything about yourself—you leave a lot for the date. 📖 The Deck is a Story About What Your Company Could Become: At one point, unicorns like Airbnb or Uber were just stories about how the world could be with the right team to make it happen. You can find the decks that told those stories: https://lnkd.in/eBMsrxFr. 👂Connect to People’s Emotions: One student had been given a vitamin subscription startup to pitch. They explained the vitamins included and the delivery service's timeliness. I advised them to connect with the emotional side: "Humans need vitamins to survive; they preserve health and help us feel our best. Without them, you can’t live your best life. It is not guaranteed that your diet will include everything you need. With this service, you will receive all the vital nutrients you need to live your best life." #startup #pitchdeck #workexperince

Another amazing Manufacturing Futures 2024 event down! 💥 Our Investment Readiness Development Day, held in collaboration with True. and led by Hattie Willis, Founder of GuessWorks, was an absolute blast. Marking the third and final development day for the finalists ahead of their upcoming pitches to the judges on 3rd July, the day featured several insightful sessions, including Finding the Right Investors, Pitch Deck Development, and Delivering Your Pitch, finishing off with a Fireside chat with True and Q&A session. Once again, we tucked into the most incredible plant-based spread for breakfast and lunch, courtesy of our friends at Palm Greens. Huge thank you to our collaborators Danielle Le Toullec, Aarthi Thangavel, Joseph Aziz, and Olivia Gaze from True, and Hattie Willis from Guessworks. Our MF24 winner will be announced soon! 👀 Keep your eyes peeled for the announcement on 4th July. Memby Jago Kali Jago London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London #FashionManufacturing #FashionInnovation #InnovationChallenge #SustainableFashion #CircularFashion #Innovation #SustainableManufacturing

We are pushing the boundaries of data aggregation through a variety of AI model for the fashion industry at TRUSS. Solving age old problems of authentication, pricing, sell through, identification, etc

👗✨MAJOR NEWS IN THE WORLD OF FASHION & AI 👗✨ ✅ Daydream changes the way people search, discover products, and shop online. Julie Bornstein (The Yes, Stitch Fix) raised $50M with Forerunner, Index Ventures, Google Ventures , and True Ventures to build Daydream, a powerful new AI-powered search and discovery shopping platform. Launching in beta this fall, Daydream will enable people to search for and discover pieces using generative AI, machine learning, and computer vision. Congrats Julie! Learn more: https://lnkd.in/eTrk72kR Waiting list: https://lnkd.in/efPJuSM5 ✅ TRUSS is cataloguing millions of fashion items to help power the booming secondhand market. Truss has gained support from Selfridges, Depop, and Heat, along with a £1 million grant from the UK government’s innovation agency to develop image-recognition technology for garments, aimed at boosting the secondhand market. TRUSS’ platform uses proprietary AI to aggregate visual, textual, and financial data, locating and comparing information for garments listed online. It offers insights into trends, authenticity, sales history, and available listings across hundreds of categories, and is designed for brands, retailers, insurers, marketplaces, and more. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/euCAaaJX About Truss: https://lnkd.in/edppTNir

StudioThree Spring Showcase Cohort Reveal! We had five phenomenal founders pitch to lots of early-stage investors at our third StudioThree showcase today. Woody Lello at TRUSS - collecting and sharing information about fashion’s past to enable a better fashion future and providing detailed product information to streamline the fashion resale process. Isabella Sumner at InHaus.ai - a tool to create affordable product videos at high volume and speed in your own studio Joe Darwen at Veo (Veo.world)and CircKit, a unified sustainability platform and AI-powered suite of tools that transforms how products are conceived, empowering brands to reverse engineer circularity into their product design processes from inception. Nick Valenzia at Leafr - connecting businesses with top-tier freelance sustainability specialists Peter Denby at HyperFinity - using decision intelligence to help retailers sell the right products to the right people for the right price. These companies are developing innovations to reduce costs, increase commercial viability, and simplify complexity for fashion companies and others as they roll out their next-stage strategies. Raising now and also ready for partnerships!

Pleased to announce the exciting work we are doing with TRUSS and Depop as part of the Innovate UK AI Grant to drive scale in our Resale business by optimising single SKU management.

Truss has secured a £1M Innovate UK grant, as announced on BoF. In collaboration with Selfridges, Depop, and University of Warwick, we will advance our AI Product Identification Software. The consortium aims to develop industry-leading visually similar algorithms, supported by research from Warwick's Centre for Applications of Mathematical and Computing Sciences (CAMaCS), led by Connor Mattinson (TRUSS), Andreas Kyprianou (CAMaCS), and Martin Lotz (CAMaCS). Ella Gould, Head of Innovation and Sustainability at Selfridges, and Alice Jacques, Depop's Director of Machine Learning, will enable the direct testing of both the AI and the technology it supports. In a discussion with Marc Bain at The Business of Fashion, we talked about our journey to this point and the transformative impact this technology will have on Selfridges' resale arm, Reselfridges, and Depop users. We look forward to bringing this technology to life with our partners in the fashion and tech industries and are grateful for the support of Innovate UK (UKRI) and our collaborators. https://lnkd.in/eYjqzV8z

We’re talking to experts and sharing the conversations on YouTube. In our new series we will be providing you insight into the industry and sharing stories from the fashion archive. The first episode is a conversation with Cozette McCreery on the state of the fashion industry, the issues within it and the iconic brand SIBLING which she co-founded. Subscribe to our channel to follow the series and find out who we will be talking to next. We have more than a handful of interviews already recorded we can’t wait to share with you. https://lnkd.in/ehN32CTX