Fig. 01 · Editorial pacing over e-commerce - lifestyle framing.
Context
Traditional luxury fashion houses reserve personal styling for in-store, appointment-based experiences with high-value customers. Purple Style Labs wanted to translate that relationship into a mobile setting: on-demand styling consultations, curated outfits, and a smooth path from advice to purchase. The product had to feel editorial, elevated, and human-led rather than like another transactional storefront, preserving the stylist-client relationship instead of automating it away.
Goal
- Launch a digital platform for a luxury fashion house.
- Make premium styling services accessible to customers on demand.
My role
- Worked directly with founders to capture their vision and define project scope.
- Synthesized insights into the company's first-ever working prototype.
- Designed the core experience for both iPad and mobile applications.
Key decisions
Leading with lifestyle rather than product catalog
The original brief emphasized showcasing designers and products. I reframed the experience around lifestyle and styling guidance - occasions, aesthetics, and curated outfits - letting specific products appear contextually inside that narrative. This shift positioned the app as a styling companion rather than just another luxury catalog, and differentiated it from competitors that led with grid-based product listings and filters.
Editorial pacing over standard e-commerce rhythms
Most luxury apps at the time followed familiar e-commerce patterns: dense grids, filter-heavy lists, and assertive calls to action. I opted for an editorial pacing instead, using large imagery, generous whitespace, and stylist-led story sequences that unfolded more slowly. Shopping actions lived within that reading-like flow, so users experienced the interface as a styled journey first and a transaction channel second.
Impact
- The prototype was instrumental in capturing the interest of early adopters.
- Successfully integrated the concept of selling a "lifestyle," not just products.
Takeaway
What I took forward
This project reinforced that positioning is fundamentally a design decision before it becomes a marketing tagline; the pacing, structure, and narrative of the interface quietly set expectations about whether customers are buying a lifestyle, a relationship, or just a product.
Tools & methods
Photoshop
Invision App
Agile Techniques
Competitive Analysis
User Interviews
User Journey Maps
Persona Creation
User Flows & Task Analysis
IA
Wireframe & Hi-Fis
Usability Testing
Fig. 02 · Style preference capture with lifestyle framing.
Fig. 03 · Wardrobe building with editorial pacing.