Just in time for awards season, online booking platform Pullquest has officially launched with the aim of streamlining the sample request process for designers and stylists. The fledgling digital showroom counts image makers for Janelle Monáe, Jane Fonda and Jason Mamoa among its advisers.
“We want to be the go-to platform for stylists and p.r.’s,” said Natalie Meyer who cofounded the business in Los Angeles with Pavel Presniakov. So far, they have signed 50 brands (including the Kooples, Rebecca Minkoff and Furla), giving them the ability to share images of their samples and look books to a network of 200 stylists, who can use the service for free after being vetted by an administrative team. Brands pay $180 to join, a nominal fee compared with engaging the services of a p.r. agency, said Meyer, noting that part of her goal is to attract up-and-coming designers, and that she has new talent from the U.K., Australia and Lebanon on the site now.
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The platform has a chat feature that allows users to coordinate shipping of samples. And launching this week, stylists will be able to post job listings, sharing with brands who they are dressing for what event, or what editorial, to solicit ideas for looks. “It’s really about connecting, and stylists can swipe yes or no like on Tinder,” said Meyer.
“I often feel like I’m an army major trying to move products from point a to point b…It’s so much texting, e-mailing and direct messaging, and we don’t want paper look books anymore, so it’s all PDFs and where do you store them?” explained stylist Tanya Gill, a Pullquest adviser, of the cumbersome process of pulling samples for clients. “With this, it’s all on one platform, you can edit more choices, and it gives young designers a chance…Because for stylists, it’s not just about the same-old, same-old big brands anymore; now, it’s more about discovery.”
Meyer said the next steps for Pullquest are to develop more search categories to filter the posted collections, with “sustainable” and “vegan” topping the list of what stylists are asking about for their clients. Soon, the platform will also begin offering a backend inventory tracking system for samples.