“I want to make conscious consumption the norm across the world,” said Drishti Gangwani, the Founder and CEO of Closr (shopclosr.com).“Purchasing one-of-a-kind, ethical pieces should be as easy as ordering an outfit from Zara for a holiday party or dinner. “The dream is to have Closr be a one-stop shop for consumers to buy into a vision, not just a product.”
One part of this is giving people the opportunity to filter products by cause. On the Closr website, you can shop designers who support sustainability efforts, health & wellness, immigration reform, and social innovation. “This allows people to filter designers by their values just as easily as they can filter by size, or color on any other website,” Gangwani quips.
Building a relationship between the buyer and the designer is a core tenet of Closr and something Gangwani believes makes a difference in how we shop. Closr also offers a dedicated page where you can scroll through and learn more about each designer.
“Fast fashion is as wasteful as it is because there’s no story behind any of the pieces,” Gangwani said. “Emotionless fashion is akin to disposable fashion because no one bats an eye before parting with something that doesn’t have sentimental value. Temporary aesthetic gratification is only good until the next pretty trendy thing comes along.”
Gangwani has spent her entire professional career pursuing recognition for emerging designers, even before stepping into the workforce. During her thesis year at Parsons, she saw the blood, sweat, and tears students poured into their collections firsthand, only to be left fighting to be on the same panels, applying for the same grants and competing for the same internships.
“We graduated with all the right technical skills to bring our wildest creative visions to life, but were left wondering how to bring that creativity into the real world,” she said. “That’s why I decided to dedicate my career to empower designers to do just that.”
During stints at GQ and Saks Fifth Avenue, Gangwani learned the ropes but also the realities of retail – according to her, “the barriers to success the fashion industry puts in front of young designers to succeed, in my opinion, isn’t justified” – so she attempted to sprinkle in undiscovered talent in her pitches at GQ. In retail, such approach was not an option.
“We had a set portfolio of over 80 well established brands with various commitments on the content calendar already set. My day to day felt like I was on this hamster wheel of uplifting the already uplifted,” She said. I remember the most creative part of my week was coming up with a tagline for our resortwear edit marketing email: ‘Go from Tie to Maitai!’ I don’t think I’ll ever live that one down.”
Taglines aside, she learned invaluable lessons about retail, from buy sheets and the intricacies of inventory planning to the power of marketing and amplifying conversions.
It’s a combination of this experience, skillset, and fervent passion that fuels Gangwani as she strives to make Closr a utopia for small designers.
Once vetted and determined to be a fit within Closr’s mission, designers go through a process of talking to Gangwani and her team about their short and long term goals and create a strategy that will get them where they want to be.
“This can be on a consulting basis with brand building, business development, or simply learning how to get your collection retail ready. However no two strategies are the same because each designer’s needs are completely different. So essentially we develop custom solutions for everyone we bring on board.”
Unique to Closr is the #DesignerDrop, which is a marketing plan that rolls out the designer to the platform’s audience in anticipation for the release of their collection. Once designers are on board with Closr they become a part of the #ClosrCommunity, which offers a variety of resources that help them grow as designers.
“Whether they want to be connected to photographers, stylists, or need introductions to investors, buyers, you name it, we make it happen,” she said.
Gangwani knows that it isn’t enough to just have an online strategy. While she credits TikTok for its amazing power to connect people to Closr, she’s also focusing on in-person events.
Every few months Closr hosts an event that spotlights up to eight emerging designers from different parts of the world. Gangwani then works with designers to determine what they need. So that might look like inviting buyers, investors, or editors. “People that are removed from the fashion industry are truly fascinated by meeting designers,” she tells me. “We achieve a much higher conversion rate (almost 100%) with designers who actually show up to the event and interact with customers, regardless of whether it’s a $50 shirt or a $1200 coat.”
Gangwani’s enthusiasm is contagious as she flutters around the room to introduce people to one another, hand others drinks, while adorned in head-to-toe pieces from the designers she’s hosting. One thing you can’t accuse her of is failing to walk the walk and talk that talk.
Gangwani already has plans to take Closr on the road, and host events around the globe. If it means bringing these emerging designers in front of more people than ever before, she’s going to do it. Especially since she’s already seeing the fruits of her championing.
Looking forward, Gangwani sees Closr continuing to do what it does now. “Whether it’s 5, 10 or 15 years from now, we’ll still be in the business of telling designer stories,” she tells me. “But I hope to be sharing hundreds if not thousands of designers with the world. I think emerging designers are the answer to bringing back that true magic of style and taste that we seemed to have lost somewhere along the way. I just hope the industry will support us in ensuring just that.”
