ModCloth is an American

online retailer Online shopping is a form of electronic commerce which allows consumers to directly buy goods or services from a seller over the Internet using a web browser or a mobile app. Consumers find a product of interest by visiting the website of t ...

of indie and vintage-inspired women's clothing based in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

History

Modcloth was founded in 2002 by Susan Gregg Koger and Eric Koger. Susan and Eric were students at

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

and launched ModCloth as a website to sell used vintage dresses. ModCloth grossed $18,000 in revenue in 2005 and received its first round of seed funding in 2008. In 2009, ModCloth reported $15 million in revenue, allowing it to relocate its headquarters from Pittsburgh's Strip District to

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

. ModCloth reported $100 million in revenue in 2012 and $150 million in 2014. In January 2015, ModCloth announced the appointment of Matthew A. Kaness as CEO replacing Eric Koger. Kaness had previously held the role of CSO at Urban Outfitters, Inc. Under Kaness's leadership, ModCloth launched its first namesake label as part of monthly collections in August 2015. The company quickly became a multichannel retailer when it opened its first pop-up Fit Shop in

, followed by another in

. ModCloth pop-up shops carried a curated collection of ModCloth clothing, accessories, and home décor, along with select pieces from local artists. ModCloth used these pop-up stores to promote existing online and social media services such as Fit for Me and the Style Gallery. ModCloth opened pop-up stores in other cities as part of the 2016 "ModCloth IRL Tour", including

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

; Portland;

Austin Austin refers to: Common meanings * Austin, Texas, United States, a city * Austin (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin (surname), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin Motor Company, a British car manufac ...

;

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; and

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

. Following these temporary store experiments, ModCloth opened its first permanent FitShop in Austin in November 2016. All IRL shops have since closed. In March 2017, ModCloth was acquired by Jet.com, a subsidiary of

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores in the United States and 23 other ...

. Jet.com noted ModCloth would run independently, similar to the arrangement in place for other companies they had acquired in the past. Both the website and the retail store in Austin would be retained by ModCloth. The partnership would give ModCloth more working capital, the ability to open more physical stores, and the opportunity to grow the business to reach more consumers. Though the financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, the deal was estimated to be between $51 million and $75 million. In October 2019, Walmart sold ModCloth to brand investment platform Go Global Retail, in a year when Walmart was facing projected losses of $1 billion in its e-commerce division. In May 2021, Nogin acquired Modcloth from Go Global Retail for an undisclosed sum. In December 2023, Nogin filed for

Chapter 11 bankruptcy Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code ( Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, w ...

. As of April 3, 2024, Nogin has announced their confirmation of a restructuring plan for their chapter 11 bankruptcy in which "reorganized equity interests will be acquired by a newly-formed entity sponsored by B. Riley Financial, Inc.

Stance on body image

Truth in Advertising Act endorsement

In 2014, ModCloth became the first retailer to sign the Heroes Pledge for Advertisers. As an endorser, ModCloth committed to not using

Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe for Windows and macOS. It was created in 1987 by Thomas and John Knoll. It is the most used tool for professional digital art, especially in raster graphics editin ...

to "change the shape, size, proportion, colour, and/or remove/enhance the physical features" of its advertising models in post-production. In June 2016, ModCloth hosted an event on

Capitol Hill Capitol Hill is a neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., neighborhood in Washington, D.C., located in both the Northeast, Washington, D.C., Northeast and Southeast, Washington, D.C., Southeast quadrants. It is bounded by 14th Street SE & NE, F S ...

to support the Truth in Advertising Act. Modcloth's Susan Gregg Koger spoke at this event alongside Representative

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Ileana Ros-Lehtinen ( ; ; born July 15, 1952) is an American politician and lobbyist from Miami, Florida, who represented from 1989 to 2019. By the end of her tenure, she was the most senior U.S. Representative from Florida. She was Chairwoman ...

, who was one of the introducers of the act.

Real people as models

In 2015, ModCloth began using staff members as models for its swimwear advertising campaigns. ModCloth's swimsuit campaign launched in response to research that correlated low self-esteem for women with exposure to thin models.

Plus-size rebranding

In 2015, ModCloth removed the plus-size term from its site. The company's decision was supported by a ModCloth survey, which concluded that almost two-thirds of women were embarrassed to shop in a separate section for plus-labelled clothing. The plus-size clothing was integrated into the greater site and made shoppable through size filters.

Crowdsourcing initiatives

ModCloth has developed several

crowdsourcing Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digit ...

initiatives that have impacted its product line.

Style Gallery

Style Gallery is a user-generated image gallery where customers send photos of themselves modelling in a purchased ModCloth garment. These photos are then featured on the ModCloth blog, allowing visitors to see how a certain clothing item looks when worn by a real customer rather than a professional model.

Fit for Me

Fit for Me is a feature on the ModCloth app, which allows users to see suggestions for clothing that will fit their exact body shape based on other user reviews. Users input their own body measurements when they leave a review for a previously purchased product. Fit for Me uses this data to generate specific clothing recommendations depending on the user's measurements.

Be The Buyer

In 2009, ModCloth ran the Be the Buyer program, which allowed users to decide which clothing designs would be produced and sold by ModCloth. Users voted on clothing samples via a

virtual tradeshow A virtual tradeshow (or a virtual trade fair) is a virtual event run in an online environment hosted online for a limited period. It can be considered the online equivalent of a traditional trade fair, tradeshow or exhibition, but exhibitors and vi ...

. If a certain product received a large enough quantity of votes, it would be pushed to production and available for purchase on ModCloth's website. Using this model, ModCloth became the first retailer to supplement an existing business model with crowdsourcing efforts.

Make the Cut

ModCloth ran the Make the Cut contest in 2012, where ModCloth created products based on consumer ideas. Customers were invited to submit clothing sketches, which were voted on by other users. The contest winners had their sketches adapted into real clothing for the spring line, with each Make the Cut garment product featuring the artist's name printed on the label.

Deva Pardue design

ModCloth received negative press for using a design by artist Deva Pardue without permission or credit.

Philanthropy

On March 5th, 2012, ModCloth announced a donation of "just over 500" dresses to The Princess Project. The project was created to provide free prom dresses and accessories to high school girls who cannot otherwise afford them. For every dress purchased from its Fancy Frocks collection that day, ModCloth said it would donate a dress to the

nonprofit A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

. Several of their employees also volunteered at the dress giveaway days. In 2015, ModCloth began a partnership with Schoola to raise money for

Malala Yousafzai Malala Yousafzai (; , pronunciation: ; born 12 July 1997) is a Pakistani female education activist, film and television producer, and the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize laureate at the age of 17. She is the youngest Nobel Prize laureate in history, ...

's Malala Fund, which advocates and supports education for young girls. ModCloth participated in the cause by donating clothing, which Schoola sold for a discount. The proceeds were then donated to the Malala Fund.

References

{{Pittsburgh Corporations Walmart Online clothing retailers of the United States Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2023 American companies established in 2002 Clothing companies established in 2002 Retail companies established in 2002 Internet properties established in 2002 2017 mergers and acquisitions Companies based in San Francisco 2002 establishments in Pennsylvania