News, The Business

Gilt Groupe is the World’s Most Innovative Fashion Company

By Lauren Sherman Tuesday, Feb 23, 2010 / 9:00 AM GMT -4

Hipster business magazine Fast Company has produced a list of the world’s most innovative fashion companies, and Gilt comes out on top.

But FC seems to have forgotten about Vente-Privee, the French company on which Gilt based its business model.

Some of the other choices make more sense, though: Fast Retailing, owner of Uniqlo, is conquering the globe; Net-a-Porter has changed luxury retail as we know it; and Dualstar has proved you can sell at every price point without damaging your brand.

If you’re talking about smartest, most successful, or most exciting fashion companies, then Gilt is definitely number one. But we can’t give the brand so much credit under this particular superlative. Crafty? Yes. Innovative? Kind of.

See the full list after the jump.

Fast Company‘s Most Innovative Fashion Companies:

1 – Gilt Groupe
2 – Fast Retailing
3 – Net-a-Porter.com
4 – Timberland
5 – Dualstar
6 – Norma Kamali
7 – Fluevog
8 – Stella McCartney
9 – Coach
10 – FesslerUSA


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  • nonameplease

    this is a pretty good expose (sort of) on gilt groupe that i think a lot of people missed because it was fashion week: http://nymag.com/fashion/10/spring/63807/
    i don't know exactly how accurate everything in it is (nymag tends to hyperbolize quite a bit), but it definitely leaves you with the feeling that gilt may be one massive bubble that will eventually pop.
    also, i just got a NaP catalogue in the mail yesterday. why the hell are they doing paper catalogues? NET-a-porter?! useless.

  • guest

    I read that piece too and thought it was very well done. Lauren, would love to hear your take on the carefully crafted images of these golden “founders”.

  • http://RockandCouture.blogspot.com/ The Style Revolution

    Ive got the Gilt”y” pleasure

  • greedy but poor

    love love loved Gilt. But they dont seem to get the good stuff anymore. I think the high end designers decided to do it themselves and control their price point. Hope hope hope I am wrong and the best comes back!

  • kayla

    This is the link to sign up http://www.gilt.com/invite/kaylaton

  • jadejade

    Here is an invite to sign up:
    http://www.gilt.com/invite/jadejade

  • http://www.fashionista.com/ Lauren Sherman

    Hi guest,

    I actually thought the piece didn't really say anything new, but maybe I've been writing about this company for too long. The one thing that did shock me was that Kevin–the chairman–was actually the one who came up with the idea. When I interviewed them for a Forbes piece back in February 2008 that was what I was told: http://bit.ly/4bFq00. In all honestly–and this is because I know a lot people who work for this company–I don't think A&A's image is far from reality. They both have the perfect backgrounds to do their jobs. (Alexis from eBay; Alexandra from LVMH.) However, I do think Gilt needs to figure out what it wants to be in the long run. Moving to full-price sales is something they've been toying with, and we'll see what happens with that.

  • ShoeLover67

    Anything fashion sounds good to me! I almost wish they would have a series instead of just a one hour special. That reminds me, I just bought these amazing shoes from a company called J Shoes! I wonder if they are part of teh 800 companies involved?

  • sloan

    Yet they still can't offer international shipping!!

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