College start-up takes fashion business to new heights with launch of AI innovative tech platform

All Eyes is a Start-up in Residence at Pearson College London that pre-pandemic provided data and analytics fashion trend forecasting for brands. Right now, it is further developing this to build an innovative AI platform that brings creatives and brands together for unique collaboration in the ‘new normal’.

All Eyes began in 2017 as a fashion trend forecasting consultancy that was set on pioneering the future of fashion through scouting trends at street level – not on the catwalk at fashion shows. Co-founders Nat Grogan and Lucas Shorvon wanted to give consumers a voice and amplify what they are wearing and report back to the world’s biggest brands and retailers.

“All Eyes trend reports are unique in that it’s 100% authentic – it’s all generated straight from the street published by our photographers,” said Lucas Shorvon. “This content is the bedrock of our unbiased trend analysis of current and emerging geo-specific fashion trends.”

Their fashion trend forecasts were gaining traction and they had begun working with brands, including a worldwide online retailer. Then Coronavirus changed the fashion landscape causing them to re-imagine their offering and they spotted another opportunity for All Eyes to make an impact.

“In the new normal, 90% of creatives work from home and projections suggest that’s only going to continue within the fashion industry. In fact, remote freelance and hybrid working was already becoming prevalent before Covid-19,” explained Lucas.

“We’re creating a digital platform to facilitate creative collaboration among individuals and enable 2-way conversations between major brands and the fashion designers themselves,” explained Nat Grogan. “It will be a creative space for visually showcasing ideas and trends, peer-to-peer learning and other content such as mood boards, articles and insights. We plan to bring this together with our new AI trend forecasting to enable an even more powerful way for brands to uncover gaps in the marketplace. And All Eyes platform subscribers will be able to produce their own bespoke trend reports at the click of a button.

“Brands and retailers are all fed the same generic insights, which is why they all make and sell the same clothes. All Eyes shows them what the consumers want and enables exciting new and existing fashion design talent to shine.”

The future looks bright for All Eyes, and they are continuing to have the business support from Pearson College London to succeed.

“We don’t see this new platform being limited to the fashion sector,” said Lucas. “It could be applied to any creative industry such as interior design, hair and beauty and performing arts – we’ve been able to conduct valuable research thanks to the support of Pearson College London and their amazing students. Even without being physically together, we have felt part of their community and healthy ecosystem.”

All Eyes are looking for their next round of investment to help scale-up the business, further develop their tech platform and accelerate their recruitment and marketing plans. They remain highly engaged with the community at Pearson College London and are even supporting with the recruitment campaign for the 2021 Start-up in Residence scheme, that will see a new set of early-stage companies join the College later in 2021.

“We’re very proud of what All Eyes has achieved so far,” said Arnold duToit who leads the Start-up in Residence scheme at Pearson College London. “We provide our start-ups with a central London HQ and access to expert business mentoring. Our efforts are tailored to the needs of each start-up and our focus is on how human resource and higher education can scale-up businesses.

“In the past three years we’ve hosted seven promising start-ups who are all still scaling. They’ve successfully taken our students as interns, often becoming full-time employees, and some of the start-ups have even closed commercial contracts with the College to help us grow – we now look forward to recruiting further early-stage businesses during 2021!

“Our academic programmes are underpinned by industry engagement – giving our students real-world professional experience with SMEs and our start-ups in residence to boost their CVs and career prospects.”

For more information about applying for the Start-up in Residence programme at Pearson College London visit: https://www.pearsoncollegelondon.ac.uk/startups