Wedding dress customizer Anomalie raises $13M as bridal stores crumble –
Summary
Customer don’t care about AI or machine learning, but they want to trust us to pull the ideas out of their heads.” Anomalie was woven out of Voorhees’ frustrations picking her own wedding dress. It’s now owned by lenders including Oaktree Capital Group, which is a bad omen given that firm was responsible for driving Toys”R”Us into liquidation instead of keeping it open. Anomalie capitalized on David’s troubles by poaching its head of bridal production Angela Ng, who now leads the startup’s Hong Kong team and relieves Voorhees of constant trips to China. Anomalie sees global demand for a better experience, and thinks it can apply its data set to wedding dresses for more cultures as well as additional types of clothing. “Our aspirations are around bringing more body inclusivity + customization to women’s fashion, not just bridal.” And while Anomalie could always find a retail partner to get more exposure, it’s tough for brick & mortar brands to operate online without cannibalizing their sales.