Since the launch of social media platforms, the rise of in-app commerce has become a hot topic.
But what if a customer could get a tailored in-app product experience to shop their favorite looks on social media, whether through the direct products they see on their feed or similar products that fit a certain aesthetic?
That’s what Aesthetic is creating through its proprietary fashion AI/ML algorithm called Alma — which is part of Google Cloud’s artificial intelligence start-up program. Think “Shazam” but for shopping looks on social media.
After going viral several times on social media for its fashion videos, the platform had more than 80,000 people signing up for its waitlist — Aesthetic has officially released to all social media users on Instagram, with TikTok and other social media integration launching this week.
LJ Northington, founder and chief executive officer of Aesthetic, said he has had notes on the project since 2020 and has been developing the e-commerce technology company since 2022. Northington previously worked at Jada Pinkett and Will Smith’s entertainment venture firm, Westbrook Media, building celebrity-powered brands, where he focused on innovation and e-commerce.
“In my personal life, I’ve always given a lot of thought to personal style and my personal aesthetic and how that develops the language that my clothes are speaking,” Northington told WWD.
Nowadays, the easiest way to decode people’s aesthetics is by looking through people’s personal Instagram accounts, Northington said. Seeing the barriers around bringing people to yet another app, he decided against this approach and instead shifted to integrating the algorithm into the various social media apps people are currently using for inspiration.
Northington said the ethos of the company is to “map the entire human style genome.” By looking at people’s inspirations, Aesthetic is decoding a customer’s identity and bringing that identity into real life through shopping. He noted that past purchases or current closet picks often differ from a person’s preference of style choices due to pricing barriers or sizing issues.
“[Alma] allows us to learn your style but it also offers value in finding what you like and closing the gap between inspiration and purchase,” Northington said. The company said that it received high conversion rates during its 1.5-month beta testing over this past summer — with 25 percent of users purchasing a product and 90 percent of users engaging with the platform multiple times a week.
So how exactly does the platform work? Users direct message the platform posts including videos, reels and carousels to the Alma social media bot and fashion concierge. Within two seconds, users are sent back a link that opens within the Instagram browser to shop the look right on the platform’s website. Users can archive looks into a collection to save for later purchasing.
LJ Northington, founder and chief executive officer of Aesthetic.
The AI algorithm also keeps track of past inspiration sent in to create future product recommendations, create outfits, find similar products that fit users’ style aesthetic and more. Northington said he sends the platform everything he is interested in, to then later use the platform’s algorithm to find specific items he previously liked for purchasing.
While a majority of the users are customers shopping looks, the platform is also spotlighting “tastemakers,” which Northington classifies as i.e. stylists, creators and fashion designers. Aesthetic is helping tastemakers to monetize their style and get recognition. With their vast affiliate catalogue of millions of products and more than 10,000 brands, Aesthetic will share a percentage of revenue with registered tastemakers when their content or algorithm influences a sale.
If a user DMs content from a registered creator’s content to the algorithm, the creator gets paid. What makes Aesthetic different from most affiliate programs is the tastemakers will receive a percentage of revenue whether a user buys the direct products they’re wearing and if a user asks for something similar within that creator’s aesthetic at a different price point — which Northington said “allows [tastemakers] to monetize 100 percent of their content.”
With people now knowingly aware and actively curating their algorithms, Northington believes that influencing via algorithms is a form of world-building and sees it as the future of shopping, travel planning, finding events and more.
“While AI is seen as a threat to tastemakers, we want to capture and maintain the human essence of taste and leverage their taste in these ways,” Northington said. “It turns it into this new form of IP or cultural currency, where we’re allowing tastemakers to own their taste.”
Reggieknow, former brand head for Yeezy and Off-White and brand consultant for Virgil Abloh at Louis Vuitton, serves as the company’s creative director. Aesthetic’s advisers include a roster of fashion, tech, talent management and e-commerce industry heavyweights: Victor Herrero, Tyler Henry, Rob Magliano, Jeff Wilkins, Kelly Helfman and Aaron Moreno.
“I saw the vision when we first started but as we’ve worked on it, it’s become very clear,” Reggieknow said. “This will have an Uber- or Airbnb-like impact on the world of fashion.”
Aesthetic investors include Slow Ventures, Adam Lin at iSeed VC and Jeanine Suah at Zeal Capital Partners for its Barclays Black Formation Investments program. Other angel investments the company said it has received come from founders of leading talent agencies; CAA agents; Devain Doolaramani, founder of talent management Friends in Reality, and fashion executive Victor Herrero. Financial terms were not disclosed.
“I invested in Aesthetic because love their mission of transforming personal taste into a shareable and monetizable asset that can shape every aspect of life,” Doolaramani said. “This is going to revolutionize how creators interact with fashion and style, offering unprecedented control over their influence and its monetization.”
Suah said the company uses “AI-powered tech and community-led growth” to create a playbook that does more than give consumers a way to shop, it helps to define identity and is a form of self-expression.
“Understanding someone’s aesthetic is the gateway to personalizing the world around them. Your aesthetic is the common thread of taste that permeates throughout your lifestyle. Our platform is not just about fashion shopping — it’s about creating a cohesive, personalized experience that reflects the deepest aspects of your identity across all areas of life,” Northington said.
