How FASHINNOVATION Is Creating Social Impact Through Technology

Akshara Subramanian

Hey guys, welcome to a new episode of The View podcast, our hot car series on leaders and reviews. I'm functione and I have customer marketing here vue.ai. Today's podcast guest is very, very interesting. She's an entrepreneur, a publicist and a philanthropist. I'm very, very excited to introduce you to our podcast guest, Jordan Maggie Moraes with over 15 years of experience in the marketing and public relations industry. She's our ideal guest. Giordano recently co-founded Fashion Evasion, a platform that's showcasing innovations in technology that are shaping the fashion industry. She's extremely passionate about causes around sustainability and women empowerment. She recently authored her first book titled It Couldn't Be You That Focuses on giving space to Homeless since the fashion initiatives. Welcome, Giordano's.

Jordana Guimarães

Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to be here.

Akshara Subramanian

So we know you've been working on a lot of incredible things. But before we even get a fashion innovation, tell us a little bit about yourself [00:01:00] and how you got into this space.

Jordana Guimarães

Yeah. So I actually I have a really unconventional theory with how a ki-min about this business, how you came into the business. I actually you know, I was never really very much into the school system because I've always been kind of like I'd like to learn things on my own piece and also learn things that I'm interested in. But just so you know, learn something, to learn something is not something that I really you know, it's not really in my core. And when I was 18 and after high school, I decided not to go to college. And I started breaking into a lot of different industries from the banking industry to the real estate industry to the hospital industry. So I worked in a lot of different facets of different industries until I was two. So for four years. And one thing that I found a commonality, the one thing that I liked about every job that I had was the part, you know, when it came to people, communications, [00:02:00] just trying to figure out, you know, how to create social impact surrounding jobs that I had in jobs that I do. And so that's how I came about, finding out about marketing and public relations, which is really what started me in this realm of the fashion industry. And so when a team about marketing and PR, I decided that that's what I wanted to pursue after doing a job that had really nothing to do with that. And I got my free position to be the public relations director for a very cheap Fourche design line for a lot of really huge brands. It was actually a company. Yeah, it was a company that held the licenses for all of these brands. And the way that I got a job, which is even more ironic because they really had no experience, was that I emailed the president of the company and I was it was a very honest email. I just pretty much said that I've never done fashion, I've never worked in public relations. But I knew that [00:03:00] through my experiences with other jobs in other industries that I had. And to me, excelling at those positions that I knew that I could do this job. And the president of the company emails me back and said that even though he sounded very bizarre to receive an email of the sort. I was very intrigued that he was very intrigued. And then he wanted to meet me. And so I remember I went back to I went to Barnes and Noble and I bought the book PR for Dummies. And this is a true story. It's very random, but it's true.

Akshara Subramanian

And I read I read an article about it. I think I've got an idea. Yeah, I guess I thought he was this person got their job at Fourche reading a book called PR for Dummies. And I was like, yeah. Interesting.

Jordana Guimarães

So that's me. Yes. I read that book. And then I went to the meeting with this president of this huge organization. And I remember he told me something that always sticks with me to this day and I use it for everything. After we spoke for about an hour, he looked at me and you said, look, you can learn a lot through reading books, going to school. That but you said passion is something that comes from within. He said, and when you speak about wanting to do this, I feel the passion and a seed shine in your eye. And he's like, I want to give it a try. But I'm not going to peel. You're going to work for free for three months. And if you can figure it out, we'll talk. And so I took the job. And that's really what started my whole journey when I was doing public relations for all of these amazing brands and meeting amazing individuals and always having to come up with an angle to pitch a story. It was very exciting for me. And so shortly after that, I started my own marketing agency and public relations agency, and I did that for about fifteen years. But I always like to give back. And social impact was a big thing for me. Like, I really, genuinely love people. It's really what drives me to do everything that I do today. And so I started to give back a lot for different organizations [00:05:00] like me collation as can. They're in a lot of actually associations with cancer awareness, and then about three years ago I got pregnant with my first baby and that's when I decided to start my own philanthropy project, which is how the book, which is now being published, came about. Title They can be used to give a face to homelessness, but because all I've known was fashion for fifteen years, I said, let me use what I know, which is the fashion industry and try to do something with that. To give a face to homelessness. And so I decided to. Social media is such a huge thing, such a technology that really evolved and changed the industry in so many ways. I decided to use the voices of the strong fashion influencers that the millennials and the Gen X really pay attention to everything they do from what they eat, to what they wear, to where they go and use their voices to start talking about struggles in their lives. To then correlate those three as a series of people that [00:06:00] are homeless today so that people see the similarities. But also, let's separate the two people. And I created a hashtag in this social media project titled They Can Be All and this is what the book is titled now. So with all of that being said, it's a long line journey. I then with having the experience of this years in public relations and the book and the whole social impact behind everything that I do for my husband, he's always been an entrepreneur, ship his entire life with innovation. It's companies with innovations and he always helps them internationalise. And so when we met and we had our babies, we have two now a year ago when we were sitting down with the two babies at home trying to figure out, you know, because I was working a lot outside of the house. He was working a lot outside of the house. We said, what if we bring in the entrepreneurship, the innovation aspect, the fashion industry, and we create like a platform where we can talk about all of these things combined. But [00:07:00] bringing in the technology component, which is something that we're seeing that is really changing everything nowadays. And so we came up with fashion ovation only a year ago, which is crazy how fast it's grown. And that's really our whole purpose is not only to showcase innovations, deal with technology that are shaping the fashion industry, but also to be able to use the platform and use these huge moguls that we're bringing onboard to speak about these different somatics, to also create awareness for social impact causes. And so, yes, that's where I am today.

Akshara Subramanian

Wow. A really long journey for diving and full of, you know, a very relevant experience, especially for something like fashion innovation. You know, I would like you to talk to me a little bit more about what has really been your aim with fashion innovation. You know, because I know was launched very successfully at New York Fashion Week last year. And I read somewhere and I believe that you just [00:08:00] your initial emails around the concept garnered a lot of attention of sea level executive d.b.'s. Louis, it's on Google CFD. And I mean, that's incredible because in just a month's time you seemed to have brought on over 30 speakers asking some participants at fashion innovation. So what was the narrative you were looking to build through these conversations with all of these regional experts?

Jordana Guimarães

So I think that, you know, when we put this together a year ago and like you said, the very interesting things that I saw is that with only like a week of having the API is just an hour ahead without having a website, without having anything to show, which is called emails. All of these huge people that you just mentioned and the founder of Shopify and a partner at IBM and all of these other individuals and and a lot of awesome brands like Ministry of Supply, Universal Standard ASPLIN. And the interesting thing is that the responses were coming in within 24 hours and not only ready coming [00:09:00] in, but they were coming in with a yes. I want to participate. I want to speak. And so when that was happening and again, they didn't know us. There was no website to look at. They had no idea about anything. All we did was right. The concept of our idea. In an email. The fact that their responses were coming in so quickly with all of these huge people wanting to speak at our event was kind of like there was a light bulb moment that it would.

Akshara Subramanian

I mean, that seems like a rather eye opener, you know.

Jordana Guimarães

Yeah. And it made us realize that it wasn't just going to be an event, but rather what we had was our business in our hands. You know, because we thought about it and we said all these people obviously are hungry to talk about this. They have a need to want to know about new technologies that maybe they don't know of the ads that they can use to, you know, just make their presence and their brands stronger or whatever it is that they want to do, whether it's a customization. And when you look at all the trends now that are happening in the industry, I think that [00:10:00] most of them, which we see, which is sustainability, new manufacturing processes, e-commerce, AI with virtual fitting rooms and so much more. I think that all of these things like brands, they know that they need to jump on the technology bandwagon if they're going to stay alive, because it's just it's the way that the world is evolving. Right, with everything. And so I think that I think we kind of we came in at the right time when no one else really was fulfilling. That means specifically. And so I think that that's why we grew so fast from day one.

Akshara Subramanian

Right. And can you tell me, you know, some of the biggest moments that you really felt were very impactful, like things that you remember that happened, that, you know, the last couple of fash innovation conferences, things that really struck you in terms of what's going on in video today, what these leaders and experts are [00:11:00] talking about. What are the concerns? Where's Riggio headed?

Jordana Guimarães

Yeah, so I would say that. So I'm trying so different things that we had the directors of NASA at our place event, and it was really interesting to see just how much brands and retailers that are fashion retailers are using that same tired or not. So like product to be able to evolve their collection or to evolve whatever it is that they're doing with technology. There's a lot of things that NASA is doing in the fashion industry. And people like when you see when you see NASA's fashion, they're like, what? But there's a lot that's one thing that we learned, which is really cool. I think the second thing was the whole like virtual fitting room aspect, because retailers, you know, a lot of people, a lot of people end up ordering right online, whether it's like thare, H&M and all of that. And I think that the whole like, you know, getting the wrong size when you [00:12:00] order something, one is bad for like stocks, which just be less, you know, in stores in absolute bought or not sold and even returns. Returns are horrible. And so when you use a eye for something to get, the exact measurement evaporates on Monday shopping. Not only does it take away a pain point in the retail fashion industry, but it also like gives us a lot more to look forward when it comes to sustainability. Right. Because you're not shipping in and out different boxes aside from like clothing that gets return and sometimes gets away and all of that type of stuff. So I think that AI is something that really was an eye opener with how much it's coming out and how many people are doing different acts like different categories of it. So that's been really cool to see. And I also think we've seen a lot of customization, like even in retail shops, like a lot of brands, a lot of companies starting to vote, how to customize things, particularly to a certain client. I think [00:13:00] people, though, when they just come in and just buy mass anymore, be a part of the masses, they want to be unique. And so I think that that's something else that we've seen a lot. So there's like a trend with those three things that we just see over and over and over again at our conferences feel with the technology.

Akshara Subramanian

Right. I think it's really exciting that you said something about sustainability. I remember meeting you at Fashion Week and even then we were talking a lot about how sustainability is a big passion of yours. I feel like sustainability. Well, sometimes I'd argue it's become a buzzword. There's also some very real aspects to it. Right. It's happening at a product level. It's happening in a business impact level. And it's also happening at a consumption level. We can really see that people on being sustainable just because they aren't applying in every aspect of their life. But. It's definitely something that people are very actively paying attention to these days. How does roping in tech titans like Masa and Jaha by Google help you put sustainability [00:14:00] as a concept in the spotlight? How do you shed attention on something that's so essential as a topic for people right now to be talking about?

Jordana Guimarães

Yeah. So I think I like sustainability, right? It could be encompass a lot of things. I think when you say, you know, oh, you know, I'm for sustainability, it doesn't have to be that everything you have and everything you do is fully organic and fully sustainable. I think I different ways to do it. I think, like, you know, for example, there is a global fashion exchange. I'm most familiar with them. But what they do is they use a online portal where they create swap exchanges is what they call them all over the world. And these like major events, but they do it all online. So the way that you like, if you what they are doing an event in in India and you want to bring in the global fashion exchange, everything you do is online Sophia technology and then you are able to set up a swap exchange [00:15:00] in your city. Where are you going? You get three pieces of clothing that you don't use anymore. You get three tickets and you get somebody else's three pieces of debris that they don't want any more. And those are your new and yours that you gave away somebody else safe. And it's there, Neal. So it's a way of like, you know, exchanging clothing so the clothing doesn't have to be sustainable. But the fact that you're passing at night and your garbage is becoming someone else's treasure, that's one. Then you have, you know. Yeah. Then you have a lot of people when it comes to customization and bespoke, when you customize something and it's something that's like longlasting and it's something that's good quality, you're not going to customize or bespoke a million pieces of something. You're gonna have one piece. But that one piece is going to last shoot 20, 30 years if you take care of it. And so, you know, it doesn't have to be sustainable fabric, but just the fact that it's one piece instead of 10. And it's customized and it's useful to you. It's something that you're going to keep for a much longer time. So [00:16:00] it's not going to generate as much pollution when you're buying in the masses. So that's the second way that we're taking that third way is just be a technology. You know, if we talk about AI with the virtual fitting rooms, it's not so much about the clothing that they return, but it's the boxes and boxes that get return. I think it's like 40 percent of purchases in the US get return. That's a lot. And then it becomes would like all those boxes that are going in and out, in and out. I mean, just I think it's like I don't want to say the wrong numbers. I'm not going to quote it, but I just heard it recently. It's in the billions when it comes to like just a lot. A lot, a lot, a lot. So, you know, I think there's different ways that technology is solving a lot of the pain points when it comes to waste to be sustainable. And then there's, of course, you know, just being fully sustainable with that type of fabric that's being used or where it's coming from and all of that. But I think it's technology is doing wonders in that in that realm for sure.

Akshara Subramanian

I completely agree with you. [00:17:00] I feel like sustainability is something that can also be a very judgmental things. And it doesn't have to be because people can apply it at all levels. And like you very rightly pointed out, I don't think that just doing something at a fabric level means that, you know, you're being sustainable. It can also mean in how you invest in your clothing, how you buy things, how you shop for stuff. Even the rental and resale model right now is so pro sustainability because it allows you to increase the longevity of an item. It allows you to. It allows you to reduce wastage and it helps you be a lot more conscious as a shopper. So, yes, completely on the same page and I agree that we don't always have to label just a fabric and just the ingredients and the process sustainable. It can also be just the way businesses are being built. Just how conscious were being shoppers [00:18:00] and as companies and retailers? Yes.

Jordana Guimarães

Yeah.

Akshara Subramanian

Absolutely. So, you know, you don't have to kind of move on a little bit to talk about your book. It can be you and you. Yeah. I just take on humanizing homelessness and raising awareness about the issue in your book. So can you tell us what kind of topics you were exploring in the book? Yeah.

Jordana Guimarães

Yeah. So the book what I did is three years ago, I raise over $10000 and go find me and we created a street team and move on out in Manhattan. And we gave out meals to thousands of homeless individuals and we got their stories of how they wound up on the streets as we gave them a meal. And then what we did is we got 50 of the top influencers in fashion on social media to come on board as ambassadors and shared their stories of struggle and how they overcame those struggles to be where they are today. And then on in the book, each page, you'll have the story of [00:19:00] the influence of struggle and how they over KYEEMA and right underneath their story. You had the story of someone who was homeless today, and it shows you just how similar their struggles were. But at the end, what circumstance one had that the other did end, that separates the two. And that's why it's called they can be. You just kind of, um. It's a way to be. You know, a lot of people have a stigma, which, you know, maybe I'd even be guilty of in the past once or twice. But you look at someone and you say, oh, they're asking for money. They're going to buy drugs, they're going to buy alcohol, especially the older generation. I feel like they, you know, they think, oh, they can just get up and get a job. But it's not that easy when you really listen to the stories. And I think the reason why I wrote the book is because in order for the problem to be solved first, people have to have compassion, tourism and understand it until you understand the problem. There is no way we can fix it. And so that that was kind of like my purpose with the book. And I'm really excited to say that I got a publishing deal just recently which break fighting to go into areas and our population bank, you know. Thank you so much. So I'm really excited to have that come out because I'm looking forward to seeing, you know, how people are to kind of like relate to it and if you are going to buy it and what's going to be the feedback? So it's really exciting, Akshara.

Akshara Subramanian

Wow, definitely sounds like there's a lot of exciting stuff going on and I think there could be a lot that comes out of how people respond to this because I think it's been interesting as to how and do you have. Can you talk to us a little bit about a little bit more about, you know, the strong kind of fashion element that you're looking at applying to these initiatives over time?

Jordana Guimarães

Yeah. So I think, like, you know, it started off with the fashion influencers in the book. I think that ideally what I would love to do is when I sell my phrase thousand books, I want to take all of those proceeds and I want to start helping [00:21:00] homeless individuals. But I don't want to just write a check to a shelter and just say, here is a donation because you don't know where that goes. What I wanna do is I want to be able to help like take an actual individual that I meet on the streets. If they want to help, eventually get designers to like, you know, design like different maybe like a collection that we can give to this group of homeless individuals to get them like a job interview. There's like differently, they think when it comes to donations of clothing and things like that, that we all need, you know, we all have to put our best foot forward and we're going to a job interview. So those type of things, I think would be really cool to deal. Another thing I think also is maybe doing some type of like a documentary, maybe getting a really big designer that has the same passion for helping the homeless or giving a faces as I do, and then maybe doing some type of a documentary where we can have them help one person specifically and kind of document that journey here like [00:22:00] a documentary. So there's like a lot of plans. You know, a lot of things that I think I could do eventually with this. But for us, it it's like baby fat bastard cell, the phrase thousands and then get the proceeds to them. But I think the fashion industry gives us a lot of people, you know, when you see the fashion industry helping the homeless. I've had a lot of pride guess interviews where they tell me really that the fashion industry really care about the runways. I see that, you know, and it's kind of and it's sad, you know, that people with things that the fashion industry is that like vague and that just kind of not caring about these types of situations because they think that they really do. But. But they don't have an opportunity to help. But I think if something comes up where it makes sense for them, like when it makes sense that their brand for them to collaborate and help in some way, I find it hard to believe that, you know, just because during the fashion industry they wouldn't want to. I think the opposite I think if they're given the right opportunity, I think that they would do it. So because there's so many people in fashion that are doing amazing things, [00:23:00] not only for fashion, but also to change the world. And again, talking about inclusivity, sustainability, transparency, storytelling, these are all things that were within the fashion industry. It's take a turn and change to raise the better for. So it's it's something that I definitely think that, you know, people have a wrong stigma. We talked about the stigma with the homeless. They think the stigma with the fashion industry also has to be adapted a little bit, because I think people don't have the best light of it when they think of the depression industry.

Akshara Subramanian

Right. Absolutely. And I think what you're doing is really amazing and creating awareness and social impact. And it's definitely challenging, but it's also very, very rewarding to see the kind of social impact that these types of fashion initiatives can create. I feel like you might have talked about this in New York, but a company called Mukata Global comes to mind because I know for a fact that they help Guatemalan women. You know, they create international sales opportunities. [00:24:00] They provide sustainable income earning opportunities for a lot of women. They're typically rural artisans. So we do a lot of back training workshops, design workshops and really enable and empower these women. So I really feel like initiatives like this around the world can really shed some light on how fashion can create social impact. So completely agree with you that. And I think the work you're doing is fabulous. So I really hope to see the kind of initiatives that you're going to be doing and I will be follow you very closely.

Jordana Guimarães

But in India, in Delhi, working with a specific slum in Delhi and working with this group of amazing, very talented women to create these pieces that she eventually wants to get a designer to bring on to their collections so that she can build schools to help women learn how to sew so that they they're given more opportunities and they can make money to provide for their family and have a better living situation. So I think any time you can tie, [00:25:00] you know, social impact to what you do, whether I mean, we're talking about fashion specific lutely, but whatever industry or anything that everything is is better. Everything is more fruitful. It's more rewarding. And it just makes the breaks happy to work every day because you know that you're, you know, being a little like you're being that one. You're helping that one percent of the world get better. No one is going to change the world by themselves. But if everybody is a little bit, I think we can go a lot further. And I think the fashion industry is one of the biggest industries. So why not use that industry to really create impact? Because everybody embraced clothes, everybody like fashion, whether whatever their style is, you know? So, yeah, that's why I think the more we can use fashion for the good, the better.

Akshara Subramanian

Absolutely. I think, you know, we're heading towards a world that's got to be a lot more responsible in how they build their businesses and how they build their Montezuma's, we can't just think about, you know, just being [00:26:00] a consumer society anymore. Think of the social impact fully and collectively, just as businesses and as an industry. So absolutely on the same page with you. You know, that's going to take Jordan. I feel like we covered a lot. I want to do a really quick rapid fire with you. You know, just think of the first thing that comes to your mind and tell us what you feel about it. OK. So I'm going to start off with what is the one thing that you think fashion businesses absolutely need to adopt right now? Something that's just a no brainer.

Jordana Guimarães

Some kind of sustainability. I keep going back to that. I hope where I come, whatever you can. Doesn't have to be fully sustainable because that's really hard to change in the business model. But do something tourists that direction and definitely have some type of social impact. If you don't already, which I think most companies do, and definitely make sure that you are on top of what the latest technologies are because [00:27:00] that's you need technology to evolve like that. We're in that world right now and that's necessary. So I would say those three things.

Akshara Subramanian

In your opinion, what's sub1 brand in fashion retail that's really nailing their customer experience? Just from every angle, really thinking of the customer, making them feel super good about themselves and you're really feeling like. They're standing out because of what they're doing.

Jordana Guimarães

I have to say, Diane von Furstenberg and there may sound cliche because maybe a lot of people think of that. But I just think she's so amazing because she never lost to she is in the process of building her brand today, and even who she hires has the same like mindset that she does. And the whole hashtag in charge that she created about recently, I think it was. But it just when you put on her clothes, you feel in charge, you feel like empowered. You are what you kind of just makes you the woman that you are. And I just think that she's an amazing [00:28:00] example as a woman, as an entrepreneur. And her brand is incredible. And she's always, always making sure that customers are number one and that it's like the best satisfaction when you shop in her store. Do anything with her brand. So I would say Diane von Furstenberg, Chanel, this from the beginning and she's so malleable today.

Akshara Subramanian

And now I'm going to you know, I'm going to just throw out some words with you and then you can tell me what your very, very brief of being in this. On each of those occasions. So tell me. What do you think about store closures? Around the world right now.

Jordana Guimarães

I think that it's going to keep happening unless people start changing things quickly that make things more exciting and yeah, it's going to keep happening. It's a lot of things changing and that you can't. This is a longer thing. But perhaps we were raised. I would say sorry. Like a bad dream. Start thinking differently to different business models. Otherwise you're gonna be the next great semi-closed because unfortunately, there's a lot changing in that realm.

Akshara Subramanian

Right. People keep saying retail isn't dead, boring retail is. So what are your thoughts on that?

Jordana Guimarães

I agree 100 percent that goes back to what I just said with make sure that you change something. But then what you're doing preaches the regular retailers selling in the masses. You're going to not be around for much longer. Try to make something exciting, something new to some kind of demo. People like hands on experiences. Just think outside the box and again, use technologies that are there to help you make that happen.

Akshara Subramanian

What role do you think I plays in the future of fashion?

Jordana Guimarães

I got a huge roar. I think that we're going to start seeing more and more and more and like I said, it all goes back to everything that's happening online with a different e-commerce strategy. The virtual fitting room is just a lot of different things that AI is able to do now. I think it's going to play a huge [00:30:00] role. It's already playing a big role, but it's going to evolve from here. For sure.

Akshara Subramanian

All right. Can you tell us maybe a couple of books or things that people should definitely read and kind of stay in tune with when it comes to things like sustainability and everything that's happening in retail right now, what are books that are really kind of opened up your mind to those topics and that whole world of the future of retail?

Jordana Guimarães

So I'm going to tell you one book specifically just because they just read it and I'm really becoming a little bit obsessed with her. Her name is Tony Goodman. She was one of the directors at Vogue. And you just sat down for her role. She has your book out now, which is called Point of View. And it's just amazing because she's been in industry for a very. And she's actually really thinking heavily now in sustainability. I just recently read an article unheroic where she's talking about possibly wanting to create the phrase mass market, mainstream [00:31:00] sustainable collection. Where's the Ralph Lauren? That was kind of like a joking quote, as she was said recently. But I see that as something that will happen because she's such a powerhouse. And her book is amazing. So that's a most recent book that I've even had time to read. But I fell in love with it. So deal by Tom Goodman I think is incredible.

Akshara Subramanian

Fantastic. I think that kind of brings us to the end of our podcast. I'm talking to you, Giordano. Thank you!

Jordana Guimarães

Thank you so much. I really appreciate you guys and I love what you guys are doing. And thank you so much for having me. I really feel honored.