A new fashion company called Aesthetic, looking to be the "Shazam for clothes," launches this week and will use AI to help people find and shop for clothing they sourced on social media.
 
The fashion concierge, called Alma, makes it easy for people to buy clothes that might otherwise be hard to find. Say you see an outfit you like on Instagram. You send out the link in a private message to the Aesthetic on TikTok or Instagram for it to reply with one containing a direct link which takes consumers straight to that page on the Aesthetic website where consumers can go ahead and shop the look or add to a 'Lookbook' collection board. "Our goal is to empower users to save, shop, and share their fashion inspiration directly from within without ever leaving their favorite social applications," said CEO LJ Northington.

Northington had been thinking about this sense of lack of tech innovation in e-commerce. Just out of college, Northington worked for a creative director whom people respect. When he then heard the same complaint again from the director he worked with, Northington began working on concepts regarding personal shopping but couldnt quite find something that worked.

He stepped back and simply asked, "What's the easiest way to learn someone's aesthetic?" he told TechCrunch. "The answer was pretty simple: look at their social media feed." 

Northington is already thinking big for the app. 

Aesthetics have taken over pop culture, and he thinks his app can be used to help creators monetize their style. He says he is talking with brands and record labels about how their artists can create their own Aesthetic pages so fans can shop their trends. Think of how everyone dressed up in silver for Beyoncé's "Renaissance" tour or the neon green looks of Charli XCX's Brat Summer. According to reports, the co-founder wouldn't say exactly how much the company has raised so far, although claims Aesthetic has invested in funds from Slow Capital and Zeal Capital Partners and also counts former Guess CEO Victor Herrero and Informa Markets Fashion President Kelly Helfman among its advisors. WWD noted that the proprietary fashion AI/ML platform is supported by the Google Cloud AI startup program.

We're sinking our money into the investment so that we can get ourselves up into profitability, Northington said. Because of Google, we are allowed to get some of our larger AI items through that place, so we keep our business pretty cost-friendly.

Before this, Northington had worked in business development and strategy for Westbrook, the media company co-founded by Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith. He wanted to be an NFL player for most of his life, but at the same time, he grew up watching his father's entrepreneurial journey and saw the fulfillment it gave to him. When sports did not work out for Northington, he figured the business world was the next closest thing to being a professional athlete.

He also graduated in psychology from Harvard. This helped him in acquiring a different perspective over the consumer habits and the motives. "Building consumer tech in today's world is a very psychological, philosophical endeavor," he said. "Building a consumer app is basically one big social experiment."