The Scoop with Daydream’s Lisa Yamner

We just turned one year old, removed the beta from our app and launched an evolution to our Style Passport to include more factors than just brand and size, which was what we started with. We’ve expanded it now to include things like, “What’s a celebrity that inspires you?” to understand more about a user’s personal taste.

I don’t think AI can define taste, but I do think it helps reflect it. As we understood more about the user and the signals that would help us create a more personalized experience, we developed a more nuanced product.

Who is the Daydream user?

It’s not an exact profile. We’ve surpassed 1.5 million shoppers but we’re still learning a lot about [the Daydream user] based on the requests. We get a lot of questions about bachelorette dressing, for example. “I need an outfit that’s Aperol spritz-themed for a bachelorette in Miami,” was one of them. That gives you the 26 to 36-year-old range of girls going to bachelorette parties.

We also have C-suite executives. We had one looking for an outfit for a work event at Grounds For Sculpture, which is a 42-acre sculpture park and arboretum in New Jersey. She wanted “to look polished but match the artistic vibe”, she said. Generally, our customer is somebody who is traveling and has a career.

Is it mostly women?

Yes, it’s about 80% women. We’ve spent most of our energy on developing the women’s product — we’re just starting to spend a little bit more time on men’s. We had a big announcement at Apple’s developer conference in June, which brought an influx of male users.

We published an article about how men are increasingly using Reddit for style advice. And Reddit is positioning itself as an antidote to AI. So that tension is interesting, but more than anything it tells you men need style advice.

My boyfriend says to everyone we meet that he feels Daydream is even better for men than for women. He goes on this whole tangent about how men have less of a sense of how they should be dressing for different occasions and this is the perfect way to get that advice.

Everybody’s life is in photographs all of a sudden. People really care about what they look like and it becomes more obvious when they’re not dressed well. Also dressing is a good shortcut to playing the part, right?

The main one is that following someone’s transactional history isn’t enough to tell you their taste. If we want to be able to surface new brands and new directions for our customers to take their style in, we need to understand more about them.

We’ve seen a really big increase in people using image search in the last year. It’s one of those sticky features that keeps people coming back. So another thing that we’re playing with now is ‘How do we get more people to use that feature?’

What type of images do people upload? Do you see an uptick in searches and customers during cultural moments like fashion weeks or celebrity weddings?

There’s a lot of Instagram screenshots, and cultural events definitely drive a lot more searches. The day after the Oscars, for instance, image searching went way up. We don’t have any pictures from Taylor Swift’s wedding yet, but when she got engaged the dress she was wearing dominated our image uploads. And then there’s also images of products people see on the street.

So nothing really has changed when it comes to style inspiration, it’s just the tools that are different. How do the Daydream teams go about growing the product catalog?

By looking at what shoppers are searching for — the brands and the products. Then we identify the gaps. We also spend a lot of time figuring out who the emerging designers are. Our catalog is massive because of a combination of our brand partners and our retail partners that offer us access to the brands they carry. But that does still leave out this large swath of really cool indie designers.

For instance, Ilana Kohn just launched a new brand called Samet. It’s small — she has about 12 products in the catalog and I think it will increase to 36, but she’s somebody that had an amazing brand before that we all knew and loved. So we got her on board. We also have a partnership with Cult Mia, who have an amazing platform of designers. Having them on Daydream allows us to represent their designers too.

Could that cover that brand discovery gap left behind by Matches and the rest of the troubled multi-brand retailers?

Fashion used to be a real estate game, right? The way you found brands was by going to the mall or the high street or the department store. And a brand was defined by its adjacencies. Now that people don’t shop that way, it’s up to us digitally to help customers find those new brands. We want our customers to trust that even if they come across a brand they’ve never heard of, it will be good and fashion forward because it’s on Daydream.

What are some of the funniest searches you’ve seen at Daydream?

The funniest ones are when people write as if it’s a diary entry, without a direct ask. My favorite one was “I’m going to see my ex-situationship at [Lower East Side NY nightclub] Mr. Purple and I want him to know I’m down.” But it’s not like, “What should I wear?” or “Is there a top that shows cleavage?”

What does that tell you about the way we dress?

I think we are back to getting dressed with intention. Before Covid, we got dressed every day out of habit. Then we literally stopped leaving our homes and we were lucky to put on a decent top. Nobody was wearing trousers and definitely not shoes. I feel people now need specific reasons to get dressed, and in some ways we’re inventing them.

The men’s and couture shows took place in the midst of a terrible European heatwave. How do you think the rising temperatures will affect the fashion industry?

What I think about the most when talking about rising temperatures is the condition of the factory workers and the lack of regulation in a lot of the countries the factories are in. Fashion companies have a real obligation to their workers to ensure safety and more companies need to take a stance on that. As the temperatures continue to rise, the stories only get worse.

On a retail level, we have seen increased searches for warm weather materials. Mesh, linen, cotton and sheer are all like way up since the end of June.

You have had a really successful career. What’s your advice on making it in America?

I think it’s all about seeing challenges as the next opportunity and not being afraid to raise your hand. I remember a very long time ago sitting at a meeting at Tory Burch, when I worked for Google. They had a bunch of interns in the meeting, and they all sat on the perimeter of the table. I turned to them and said, “You guys all need to find a way to be at the table.” I stand by that piece of advice: always make a seat for yourself at the table because nobody else will.

You can catch up with the last Scoop with Jacqueline Kavanagh here.

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