Entrepreneurs from ECS Launch Innovative Fashion Startup

On September 2nd, three young entrepreneurs from the ECS department of the University of Southampton launched their brand new online business, known as garmsby.

With the slogan, ‘designed by you. chosen by the crowd. worn by everyone.’ garmsby allows you to design your own item of clothing (t-shirts initially, yet soon after launch they intend to offer a wider range of garments), encourages the crowd to choose their favourite, and then enables everyone to purchase the most favoured garment. They anticipate that people who are proud of their own art – be it a drawing, a computer created design or any other art form – will submit pieces, so that the other consumers have a wide range of varying apparels to browse and choose from.

Post-graduate masters students Adam Adeniran and Marc de Vos, along with their graduate partner Jonny Morrice, have created a new concept that will open up all manner of opportunities for not only themselves, but moreover for budding fashion designers as well as recreational artists or anyone interested in having their idea on a t-shirt. It all started with a visit to the ECS department from business expert Jason McMahon, who showed interest in the boys’ idea and encouraged them to pursue it. When speaking to The Tab, co-founder Adam explained how the initial idea came about:

“garmsby started as a conversation between the three of us in a popular coffee shop in Southampton. We’d always spoken about starting a company and this seemed like a genuinely good idea [straight from the brain of Jonny Morrice].”

Chosen by the crowd: by clicking the heart users will be able to register a ‘like’ for this design

The site will begin functioning with two week cycles for voting. garmsby will launch with 10 submitted designs; after two weeks of public voting (using the world favourite ‘like’ button) the top two designs will be put into the garmsby shop and will therefore be eligible for purchase. The interesting thing about garmsby.co.uk is that when a purchase is made in the online shop, the majority of the profits (60% to be exact) are actually credited to the original designer. Essentially, garmsby is a platform that will facilitate aspiring designers in building their own clothing brand from scratch, and will reward them if their design is chosen. Comparatively, garmsby also encourages anyone to try their hand at t-shirt designing, and hopes that people with no experience will give it a go. After all, what is there to lose?! The garmsby team have informed The Tab that they are “always looking for people to submit more designs; they can make money if they win / their design gets the most likes.” Clearly the trio understand that the possibility of the designers making money from their designs is pertinent in their advertising campaign.

After a summer of hard work, garmsby is ready, and successfully launched on September 2nd . This concept has received a lot of support from the ECS faculty, so it would be great for the rest of the University to get behind Adam, Marc and Jonny as they bravely attempt to make something of their coffee shop dream.  Visit their website to try it out for yourself!

For more info contact: [email protected]