WORDS:OLIVIA MORRIS
Changing the Game of Fashion
What inspired you to go into the world of fashion? After graduating from university, I decided to move to Paris for a few months and landed an internship at a small fashion magazine called Boulevard in Paris. I quickly found myself in a world that combined everything I was interested in – design, photography, art, architecture – along with an entirely new passion to me – fashion. I ended up staying for three years, having been given the job of arts editor. As it was a small team, I had to turn my hand to pretty much everything: writing captions as well as larger profiles; researching pictures as well as working on layouts, and also, excitingly, organising the celebrity covers and fashion shoots. One minute I would be writing about the latest rising star of the French ballet, then next I would be setting up a cover shoot with Kristin Scott Thomas (a Paris resident) or Catherine Deneuve. I will always remember attending my first fashion show by the designer Hervé Léger. I didn’t have a seat and was standing right at the back of the room, but the moment the supermodels – Cindy, Naomi and Christy – hit the runway in his famous bandage mini dresses made quite an impression. It was an incredible introduction to the world of magazines and fashion and I never looked back. Can you talk us through your career prior to launching DREST? After four years in Paris, I returned to England and wrote for the national newspapers before moving to be a deputy editor, firstly at Tatler and then at British Vogue. I was 29 when I accepted the editorship of a magazine then called Harper’s & Queen – I was the youngest edi-
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tor in the UK ever to edit a glossy magazine – and after a few years, led its transformation to Harper’s Bazaar in line with its international sister titles. Twelve years later, I was hungry for new challenges. The media landscape was rapidly changing, and so was the way women read and consumed fashion. I had worked at Condé Nast with Net-a-Porter founder Natalie Massenet and while our career paths had diverged, we would often meet up after the fashion shows in Paris or Milan and discuss our idea of creating a global fashion magazine that combined content with commerce. And so in 2012, I moved to Net-a-Porter to become their global content director, overseeing the launch of their new media division: we launched a weekly digital magazine called the Edit (2013), which was followed by a global fashion bi-monthly print magazine Porter in 2014. I left in February 2019 to set up DREST, and here I am. You launched DREST in 2019 and it really is a game-changing concept. Where did the inspiration for combining gaming with fashion come from? I first became fascinated by the world of gaming over 10 years ago, watching both my nephews playing the new Harry Potter game and then also seeing my Facebook feed filling up with posts from friends inviting me to play a new game called Farmville. I was drawn to the compelling storytelling and incredible interactivity of the experience and kept thinking how amazing it would be if there were a game relevant to me and something I was passionate about and interested in. At the time, I didn’t think the luxury
fashion industry would be ready to embrace gaming, but as the years went on I saw both the number of people gaming escalating - as well as a shift in the profile of gamers (over 60 per cent of mobile gamers are now women) - and the luxury brands looking for ways to engage a new audience, and decided to pursue the idea of creating the world’s first luxury fashion game: the concept was simple: to create a game where players were given the tools a fashion stylist has access to – the latest clothes, models, great hair and makeup, the locations – and challenge them to create their own fashion looks, thus allowing them to showcase their creative talent and even get noticed by the fashion industry itself. Can you talk us through the concept? DREST is the world’s first luxury fashion and beauty game played on your mobile phone. Players adopt the role of a fashion stylist, responding to daily styling and mood board challenges inspired by real-time fashion news (think red carpet events, a specific trend, a celebrity look). They use the latest products from the world’s leading luxury fashion and beauty brands to style our diverse range of model avatars – including five real-life supermodels; Irina Shayk, Imaan Hammam, Natalia Vodianova, Precious Lee and Candice Huffine – and create unique mood boards. Our digital fashion assortment is provided by both Farfetch and brands directly and includes the likes of Prada, Fendi and Gucci and enables users to shop the content they have created and competed with virtually seamlessly in real life, should they wish to. Our beauty looks come courtesy of global
IMAGE: SUPPLIED
Entering into a new realm of fashion, DREST is the first luxury convergence platform combining gamification, shopping, creative content and philanthropy. Founded by editor- in-chief turned-entrepreneur Lucy Yeomans in 2019, she discusses all facets of DREST, from its inception to where it stands today
FAS H I O N
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