What is Lyst? 

A Lyst is like a mix tape that is published and shared with their friends. If you like the items people are ‘lysting’ then you can follow them and then whenever you follow anyone their items go into your news feed. So, say if I follow my 50 favourite designers and boutiques, department stores, bloggers, magazines, even musicians and actresses – anyone who I find is a sign of inspiration. If I follow them whenever they lyst an item that gets sent to my feed. And the feed becomes a super-relevant place for me to discover something I love, because I have effectively chosen the source for everything. And then In addition, you see the social context behind an item. 

So, I can see the same Gareth Pugh dress, for example, but if it’s listed by say me or by Anna Wintour or anyone. That means very different things to me and so understanding the source of that recommendation, I think is quite significant to a consumer to say; actually this is something I really like. We now have about a quarter of a million people visiting the site every month and we are already generating millions of dollars for the partners we work with. 

Who are your Lysters? 

We have some stylists; we have Annabel Tollman in New York- she likes Internet things because she’s been working very closely with eBay. The editor of Naag. As has Cat Deeley and a number of well known bloggers, like Disney Roller Girl has one here in London, we have La Carmina in Japan, we have Jennine [Jacob] from IFB and The Coveted in New York. Then we have pretty much every major boutique and department store. There are a lot of designers we work directly with as well. 

What’s been the biggest hindrance? 

One of the complications we have had is that we started internationally from day one. And so, when you log in from France you will see items that will ship to you presented in euros, the same in the US, and the UK in dollars and pounds accordingly. Traffic comes from 188 countries around the world. It’s been quite difficult for us to be global with a very small team from day one. We have a very small office in New York, I’m over there every three weeks. I have had to spend a lot of time travelling. 

You have a degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge, how did you make the leap into fashion? 

When I graduated, like many other graduates, I wasn’t sure what to do apart from the vets and medics who seem to be like born to be a doctor or a vet. Fair play though you have like six years or seven years to qualify. You have to want it but I was always jealous of the people who knew what it was, and I didn’t. I had this desire to build something but I didn’t really know what it was. 

Then I worked in this big company and realised I’m more suited to small companies. I went to work for an investment firm, investing in Internet companies. At the interview I basically said, I want to leave in two years to start my own thing. It is kind of unusual to resign before you’ve been offered the job, but that really fit with their model because most of their partners were former entrepreneurs. I basically saw out the two years as an investor, investing in some fashion companies as well as music and games, really as a learning platform. 

I come from a very techy family. But at the same time I’ve always been interested in fashion and saw these two passions of mine, coming together. There was an opportunity because more and more people were buying fashion online at the moment, and more people are setting up shops online. There were more and more blogs too. It's just become incredibly hard in this fragmented online (fashion) world, to discover what you’re looking for.

When will you consider Lyst a success? 

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to consider it a success, it’s kind of like a treadmill. Let me give you the real answer which is; whenever anyone is looking… we basically want to be the dominant platform for people to discover fashion they’re going to love. So you will have put effort in, in terms of following the stylists and the designers, musicians – anyone you find inspirational and that you would check it everyday to find out what items the people you care about are lysting, and use that’s as the way to either purchase or to add stuff to your own lyst.

What is the future of fashion?

I hope these words don’t come back to haunt me, I find it difficult to imagine a world where more than 50% of fashion bought, is bought online. It is a huge industry, so for us – if we were to stay online that would be interesting, but we are also trying to see how we can merge the digital world with the real, offline world.

Where do you shop?

My favourite boutique in New York is called Odin. The first time I went there I picked up these five shirts and jumpers off the rack tried them on, it was a bit ‘Meh, wasn’t really feeling it’ and I was walking out the door and this guy was like: ‘Yeah I’m not surprised’. I was like: ‘Excuse me?!’ and he said: ‘You shouldn’t be wearing that; you should be wearing this’. He just said it in a very matter of fact way and I had some time on my hands. I thought, you know what I’m going to humour you. And he gave me these five items which I would never have picked out and I tried them on and just the way that they were cut, they basically just fit well. That’s why I love Odin, whenever I go back in I see my man George and he tells me this is what’s just come in, and this is what’s going to work well with you.

In London, I like Start. I don’t find the big department stores- the Harrods, the Harvey Nicks curated enough, boutiques are better.

Who is your Idol?

I think, to some extent the people who have made online fashion an industry deserve a lot of credit, without say, Federiko Marchetti from YOOX, Natalie [Massenet] Net-a-porter, None of us would be in online fashion, doing what we are doing or could be doing it. The vision that Natalie had in ‘98 to say people are buying considerable amounts of fashion online was tremendous. She stuck at it for a long time with limited success before it really began to take off, and that sort of tenacity is really inspirational. So, certainly from the online fashion point of view, anyone in online fashion, on the retail side owes them a debt. 

Follow IDOL Magazine's Lyst

Interviewed by Lucy Morris

Photo Credit: Hana Bauman-Lyons