A note from Karin & Liya
August was a month of contrasts. Fashion commerce is becoming more sophisticated, with richer data, AI moving closer to the shopping journey, and platforms preparing for agentic commerce. At the same time, the continuing Phia story shows how quickly innovation can unravel without strong governance. This month, we look at Phia, Reformation’s IPO, regional fashiontech developments, and why founders need to get better at explaining what they do.
Phia Scandal Continues
Bloomberg’s 11 August follow-up has deepened the controversy around shopping startup Phia, challenging its earlier explanation that the affiliate attribution issue was a recently discovered software problem. According to the report, internal Slack messages and people familiar with the matter suggest co-founders Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni knew for at least seven months about features that could automatically place affiliate cookies and claim credit for purchases Phia had not driven, conflicting with its 8 July statement that it had learned of the issue “within the last 24 hours.”
For fashiontech, the bigger lesson is about trust and governance. As shopping shifts toward AI assistants, browser extensions and agentic commerce, attribution increasingly becomes part of the product itself, making clear controls around sales credit, partner payments and product behaviour essential.
Reformation Goes Public - Built on Brand, Powered by Data
Reformation began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on 30 July under the ticker REF, raising approximately $211 million alongside selling shareholders at a valuation of roughly $886 million.
From a fashiontech perspective, the operating model is particularly interesting. Reformation has built a highly data-driven DTC business, with its patented Retail X stores connecting physical shopping with digital behaviour and generating item-level and fitting-room data. In 2025, it generated $507.1 million in revenue, with nearly 70% of DTC revenue coming from returning customers. The question is whether those advantages translate to agentic shopping. Reformation understands its customers internally, but when AI agents are making recommendations, its products also need to be legible to machines externally.
Read Liya’s full analysis
Antler Riyadh Founder Residency Applications Are Open
Antler has opened applications for its next Riyadh Founder Residency, with the Saudi Arabia programme scheduled to begin on 11 October 2026. The 10-week, in-person residency supports founders at the earliest stages of company building, including people still validating an idea or looking for a co-founder.
Selected teams can pitch for an initial $180,000 SAFE investment for 11% equity, with the potential to unlock additional follow-on funding. For fashiontech founders in Saudi Arabia, the residency is another route into the region’s growing early-stage ecosystem - particularly for teams building across retail, commerce, logistics, AI and consumer infrastructure.
Learn more and apply through Antler
6thStreet Evolves into AIVI
Apparel Group has evolved 6thStreet into AIVI, positioning it as a next-generation shopping platform. AIVI brings fashion, footwear, beauty and lifestyle brands into a more connected shopping destination. Alongside personalised product discovery, the platform introduces features including virtual try-on for selected styles, delivery in as little as 60 minutes and integrated Club AIVI rewards. The rebrand reflects a broader push by Apparel Group to create a more seamless and personalised digital shopping experience across its brand portfolio.
Explain Your Startup Clearly: What FashionTech Founders Need to Get Right
A big part of our FTME community is made up of fashiontech startups, many of them actively seeking funding. And when someone is seeing your business for the first time, clarity matters: they shouldn’t have to work their way through half a deck before they understand what you’ve built and why it matters.
AI has made it much easier to produce polished, sophisticated-sounding copy, but also easier to hide a simple explanation behind phrases like “infrastructure layer”, “AI engine” or “end-to-end platform”. None of these terms are inherently wrong. The problem is when they replace the substance underneath.
We’ve collated some of the most common communication pitfalls we see in early-stage startup decks into a simple guide, with practical examples and tests to help make your messaging clearer.
Read the full guide: How to Explain Your Startup Clearly
This month, we feature Natalia Varga, co-founder of UAE-based LOOKSY. The platform uses AI-powered virtual try-on technology to help shoppers visualise garments, receive size recommendations and discover complete looks directly on fashion brands’ websites.
In the interview, Natalia discusses her journey, the realities of building an AI-powered fashion platform and why the Middle East is becoming an important market for virtual try-on and personalised fashion technology.
Read the full Founder Spotlight here
📍 August Events We Attended
The AI-Native Atelier: Reimagining Luxury Jewellery
This month, we attended The AI-Native Atelier: Reimagining Luxury Jewellery, organised by Original Luxury and the DMCC Luxury Innovation Centre. The conversation explored what happens when AI moves closer to the creative and commercial core of jewellery.
How can AI support design, personalisation, storytelling and the client experience without flattening the craftsmanship, provenance and human judgement that make luxury valuable?
Studio Diatech offered a glimpse of what this can look like in practice: conversational and image-based jewellery discovery, customer taste profiles, tools that allow customers to create and submit personalised designs, and new ways to capture the provenance of the design process itself. The broader takeaway was that AI is reshaping even industries where craftsmanship is fundamental, not by replacing the human element, but by making discovery, personalisation and storytelling easier, and enabling experiences that weren’t previously possible.
The New Taste Makers
Karin looks at how the forces shaping taste are changing. Fashion and luxury once relied on editors, buyers, celebrities and creative directors as cultural gatekeepers; today, creators, communities, algorithms and AI systems increasingly shape what gets discovered and desired. For brands, this raises a new question: if tastemakers now include machines as well as people, who are you designing your communication for?
Read Karin’s full article: The New Taste Makers
Shopify’s Centre of Gravity Is Shifting
Liya looks at Shopify’s increasingly important role in agentic commerce. As shopping shifts from journeys that start on websites toward conversations with AI agents, value increasingly moves to the infrastructure underneath: product data, discovery, checkout, payments and merchant relationships. For fashion brands, the storefront may become less visible, but the quality and structure of the commerce infrastructure behind it will matter more.
Read Liya’s full article: Shopify’s Centre of Gravity Is Shifting
Dubai Fashion Week | 1-6 September
Dubai Fashion Week returns to Dubai Design District from 1-6 September 2026 for its Spring/Summer 2027 edition. As Dubai continues to strengthen its position on the international fashion calendar, we will be watching not only the collections, but also the technologies, retail conversations and emerging business models surrounding the shows.
If you are attending, let us know - we would love to hear what you are seeing on the ground.
Explore Dubai Fashion Week
FashionTech Middle East Coffee Meetup | 25 September, 10:00 AM
Our Coffee Meetups are back after the summer break. Join the FashionTech Middle East community on 25 September at 10:00 AM for an informal morning of coffee, conversation and connections across fashion, luxury, retail, startups and emerging technology.
No panels. No presentations. Just an opportunity to meet people working across the ecosystem, exchange ideas and talk about what is actually happening in fashiontech across the region.
Register to join us
Chief of Staff
Gloria Jeans | Dubai: Gloria Jeans is hiring a Chief of Staff to the CEO to act as a trusted strategic and operational partner across its international organisation. The role sits across product, buying, design, sourcing, supply chain, retail operations, finance, HR, IT and ecommerce, translating CEO priorities into clear actions and coordinating cross-functional strategic projects through to execution.
Apply here
Associate Director - Global Communications & Community Engagement
AMOUAGE | Dubai: AMOUAGE is hiring an Associate Director to lead its global publishing, community and cultural engagement strategy. The role spans social publishing, community building, cultural partnerships, advocacy and brand experiences, translating the House’s fragrance, craftsmanship and cultural narratives into a coherent global ecosystem. Significant luxury communications experience, including direct prestige or niche fragrance experience, is required.
Apply here
Brand Manager - Premium Luxury Portfolio
Chalhoub Group | Dubai: Chalhoub Group is hiring a Brand Manager to lead a portfolio of premium fashion brands including Adolfo Dominguez, Axel Arigato, MC2 Saint Barth and CWF across the region. The role spans retail, wholesale and ecommerce, with responsibility for commercial strategy, seasonal buying, brand partnerships and identifying opportunities to grow the portfolio through both new stores and digital channels.
Apply here
Closing Thoughts
September will be a busy one, as Dubai gets back into its usual post-summer rhythm and the calendar is filling up with events.
Follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram to stay updated… and as always, if you discover an emerging startup, attend an interesting event or come across a development the FashionTech Middle East community should know about, we would love to hear from you.
Until next month,
Karin & Liya
Co-Founders, FashionTech Middle East
