‘Clueless’ -inspired app Alta partners with brand Public School to start integrating styling tools into websites
Source: TechCrunch
Much has changed for Jenny Wang, the founder who’s bringing “Clueless” fashion tech to life.
Funding and Growth
Last year, Alta raised $11 million in a round led by Menlo Ventures. The round featured a mix of high‑profile investors, including models Jasmine Tookes and Karlie Kloss, Anthropic’s VC arm Anthology Fund, and Rent the Runway co‑founder Jenny Fleiss.
TechCrunch caught up with Wang during New York Fashion Week to discuss how the company has expanded since that round.
Product Milestones
- The Alta app is now available in the App Store. Time and Vogue named it one of the best innovations of the previous year.
- More than 100 million outfits have been generated on the platform since its 2023 launch.
- Partnerships include Poshmark and the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), with additional collaborations forthcoming.
- The app features thousands of brands that users can shop from directly.
Integration with Public School
This week, Alta unveiled its first website‑integration collaboration, teaming up with Public School, a storied New York City brand.
“Shoppers can style looks from the new collection on their own Alta avatar,” Wang explained.
Wang met Public School’s designers Dao‑Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne through the founder of Poshmark, who is also an angel investor in both companies. Public School, which had been on hiatus, used NYFW to mark its grand re‑debut.
“We have to look at tech as a partner in the business today,” Chow told TechCrunch. “It’s not 2015 anymore… We want to be thoughtful on how we use tech and AI—not as a design tool but as a tool to extend our storytelling and interact with the consumer.”
How the Integration Works
- On Public School’s product page, an icon labeled Style by Alta directs shoppers to Alta, where they can style their avatars and see how Public School clothing looks on them before purchasing.
- Users of the standalone Alta app can also access Public School through the app.
- The goal is to enable similar experiences across other brands, allowing shoppers to try on items directly on brand websites without first adding them to an Alta wishlist.
Industry Context
Major fashion houses such as Zara and Balmain have experimented with digital avatars. Compared to Zara’s avatars, which can wear only four items and take about two minutes to render, Alta avatars can don at least eight items within seconds.
Vision for the Future
Wang sees Alta as both the “Clueless” technology it began with and a broader digital‑avatar business:
“The consumer Alta app is the ‘Clueless’ closet, while the enterprise Alta experience allows shoppers to style pieces and try the outfits on their pre‑existing Alta avatar.”
She envisions Alta becoming the personal identity layer for the future of consumer AI and shopping, providing a data layer that understands a shopper’s style preferences, closet, past purchases, and avatar characteristics.
Image Credits: Alta