FASHION

Site Lines

Crowd-sourced designs on Garmz.com.

by Kabir Chibber

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When Andreas Klinger, Tamas Locher, and Gilbert Wedam launched garmz.com last June, they weren’t short on ambition. “We wanted to turn the concept of fashion upside down,” says Klinger, 29. The website allows aspiring designers to upload sketches, which are then voted on by Garmz’s 5,400 users. The most popular designs are produced in a run of 250 pieces and sold through the site, with the profits split between Garmz and the designer. Its first product—draped shorts by Simon Winkelmüller, a Viennese designer who has a label called W.ink—debuted recently. “When I saw the prototype, I was totally amazed at how well they implemented it based only on the sketch and online contact with me,” Winkelmüller says. With 800 designs from 39 countries in production, Klinger continues to dream big: “We want to bring you the next Lagerfeld, the next Armani.”

Courtesy of the designer.