Fashion Electives

UsTrendy shuns subject-verb agreement, exclusivity

By CARLY LAVOIE

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It may have taken an eight-year hiatus, but everyone's favorite vintage trend is making a comeback: Democracy is back in style. Local entrepreneur (and friend to many a struggling artist) Sam Sisakhti is leading the charge with his new website, which is out to democratize the cutthroat, top-down fashion industry.

A simple concept—aspiring designers upload their designs, and with a voting system possibly superior to that of the American government, users rate their favorites, which then get produced and ultimately featured in a fashion show.

At first click, the site's butterfly- and spiral-busy homepage may appeal more to the after-school-mall-dwelling demographic than a couture-seeking consumer—but the simplistic interface really just means an intuitive, user-friendly system, and the question lingers: What do I want to rate? Women's dresses? Men's shoes? Models? (Decided to leave the model rating to prime-time panels.)

"For so long, consumers have been subjected to what a select few labels [decide] 'what's in' or 'what's hot,'" says Sisakhti, "so I wanted to let the most important voice of all be heard. The voice of the people."

A former business major at Brandeis, Sisakhti was tired of watching his gifted friends in the fashion world struggle and fail, and so he set out to "create an open system where truly talented people can become successful regardless of what connections they may or may not have." The Waltham-based site launched in August, and despite national recognition (winning designs will already be featured in North Carolina Fashion Week), Sisakhti is turning his attention to local community involvement. This spring, UsTrendy will host a prom dress giveaway: Boston students will write essays to win top-rated dresses by UsTrendy designers.

From a backless, ruched, "reworked" vintage minidress to purple variegated leggings, and menswear ranging from graffitied blazers to peacoats, the whole experience is a bit of a tease—rating isn't the same as buying, and you definitely want to buy what you see.

Wherein lies the incentive to vote: In addition to weekly competitions where prevailing designers win $100 cash prizes, UsTrendy holds eight-week-long seasonal contests. The top 10 winners then go through a second voting process and a final winner is proclaimed (currently, the site is taking submissions for its Spring Fashion Designer 2009 Competition). The winner will be awarded $1,000 cash prize, the chance to finally get their designs produced and promoted, and the exclusive sale of their line on UsTrendy, which means we get to buy them ... which means democracy actually ... works!

[ustrendy.com]