Cherry trees aren’t the only things getting ready to blossom around Washington this spring. Arti Anand, 30, and Komal Kushal Raj, 33, cooked up a new women’s fashion Web sitethat could launch as early as this week. Numari, funded with $75,000 from the two MBAs, allows professional women to customize the size and design of their own dresses, including sleeves and length. The dress prices range between $160 and $285.
“Fast fashion” has made it easy to stay on top of trends, but drastically lowered the quality of clothing available in mass market stores. Several startups, include Bonobos,Indochino, J. Hilburn, and Trumaker, are trying to reverse the trend by offering custom-made men’s wear. Now a new startup called Numari wants to do the same thing for women. To purchase a dress from Numari, customers fill out a measurement profile (the site says doing this takes less than 15 minutes) and pick details like hemlines and sleeve length. Garments are made-to-order in Asia and take about three weeks to process and ship, which co-founder Arti Anand says is about the same as for men’s custom brands. As Numari scales up, it hopes to reduce that time to 10 to 14 days.