Strike a Pose: Rachel Zoe Invests in Fashion App

Amid the fashion inspiration, advice and bookmarking apps that have wrangled for the attention of shoppers over the past two years, a few leaders are beginning to emerge.

Last month, Pinterest-lookalike Fancy stepped more directly into retail by beginning to process transactions directly on its site. Fashism, a style feedback app popular among teenagers, went a step further, opening up an online shop that quickly began selling out of merchandise.

[More from Mashable: Neiman Marcus Heralds New Collection With Facebook Styling Contest]

Now outfit-sharing app Pose has seen a quick rise in interest — both from users and investors — thanks to savvy integrations with Facebook‘s Open Graph and well-known tastemakers.

One of those well-known tastemakers, celebrity stylist and designer Rachel Zoe (pictured), is now an investor alongside her husband and business partner, Rodger Berman.

[More from Mashable: Get On-the-Go Style Advice With Fashism’s Upgraded iPhone App]

Zoe has only been uploading photos to the app, which is available on iOS, Android and Facebook, since the beginning of the year, but has already amassed around 200,000 followers.

She’s also brought many of her existing followers onto Pose’s platform.

It’s one thing to become involved in the app, another to invest in it. In an interview with Mashable, Berman said he and his wife invested in part because it was a promising business, and in part because they like to support LA-based startups that fuse fashion, technology and media.

App developer Mobile Roadie, trip-planning app Trippy and discount retail site 23rd.com are among their other investments in the space.

“Online sharing, a la Pinterest, is obviously a bit trend right now, and we’re hoping Pose is going to be the leader in fashion for that purpose,” Berman said of their decision to invest in Pose.

“People are posting what they like and tagging it, and what’s next, you’ll buy it. Eventually [Pose] will get into commerce.”

Of Pose’s push into commerce, CEO Dustin Rosen would only say that the company wants to move “past inspiration towards actual shopping.” Whether that will mean driving sales through third-party retailers, developing its own transactional platform or building out a store isn’t yet clear.

“What we don’t want to do is push something down people’s throats. We want it to be a natural progression,” Rosen added.

Rosen wouldn’t disclose the number of signups Pose has received, although he did point out that the Facebook app had 290,000 registered users and that user signups have increased tenfold since Facebook Timeline was released.

He also said that 40 million poses are viewed per month across Pose’s apps.

Several of Pose’s top users, including blogger Leandra Medine and model Coco Rocha, have followers in the 100,000 range.

Image via Rachel Zoe’s Pose account

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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