July was a long time coming. It was the month that represented a breakthrough. That breakthrough arrived in the form of validation from Google and eBay, when they backed Whering.
Whering is the Clueless-inspired app where I serve as investor and President. In July, Whering closed a $7 million raise backed by Google and eBay just after we achieved growing its base to 10 million users. The news became evidence that the partners capable of shaping fashion’s next decade are beginning to take its technological potential as seriously as we have for years, and that a decade-defining consumer base is finally matched by decade-defining support. Everything else this month intensified the feeling of that one development.
It was fitting that the wonderful Christopher Aaron Blackmon’s piece for the Financial Times arrived in the same stretch, asking what the reaction will be when heritage houses adopt AI across design, forecasting and trend prediction.
I found myself answering that question from more than one vantage point and it inspired great conversations between Christopher and me. At Guarino Advisors, this is the question we answer for clients through counsel and risk frameworks. At Whering, with more than 10 million users already trusting the platform and two of the internet’s most credible names now standing behind it, it is no longer a question I’m answering in theory. It is the work itself.
That distinction sharpened further in a conversation with a colleague who leads accounts for some of the world’s most storied luxury houses. We discussed how seriously those houses are actually planning for AI’s risks and what I heard from him confirmed a pattern I have watched for some time: regulatory sensitivity is present in Europe but governance discipline has yet to take hold at the operating level, even there. It remains earlier than what financial services experienced a decade prior and it is precisely that unclaimed ground that shaped the rest of the month.
In July, I also contributed to the EU AI Act’s Article 6’s classification rules for high-risk systems. I gave that same instinct discussed with my colleague, a more formal expression.
Digital Product Passports additionally offered a more tactile version of the same idea. Publishing on resale verification and working with clients on preparation for upcoming regulation is the same initiative underpinning the current work I am immersed in and fashion’s next chapter.
Lastly, launching Fashion Tech News Explained was inspired to share my knowledge and awareness of these issues with the industry’s wider community. Whether read by founders, leadership or consumers, Fashion Tech News Explained is intended to be a place to break down the technicalities of fashion tech, explaining stories like Phia’s recent one, to provide context to an industry that is only becoming acquainted with a world I have long been a part of.
Taken together, the month traced a single arc, from advising on governance in theory to building it in practice at Whering. That shift, from argument to breakthrough is what will stay with me longest.