SOCIAL MEDIA GOES FASHION

JustProud is a fast growing social community for everyone who wants a career in fashion or who is passionateabout it. Get discovered through JustProud or see it as a stepping stone. The community driven fashion brandenables members to upload their design, share opinions, participate in photo shoots and more. All for thepurpose of creating their own fashion brand.How does it work?

At JustProud.com designers upload their designs. Models and photographers connect their profile to the designs they believe in. Then all members have the opportunity to vote and decide what getsproduced, featured and who wins a photo shoot. It is the community who decides!“There are two kind of photo shoots”, explains Geert Rietbergen the founder.

“Frist there is a local shoot whereone item is featured”. The expenses will be little, because the designer, model, make-up artist andphotographer simply receive a share of the sales profit for the item. Then there will also be an international shoot for the entire collection.

Those expenses will be covered by JustProud.According to Rietbergen the fashion industry is very ‘top-down’: A designer decides what happens with hisdesign. “Our new concept is more than just creating clothing, it’s collaboration. The buyer decides what he/shewants to see launched.” In the meantime there already has been a co-creation event after which JustProudrapidly grew. “In the community we create things together, people share their opinion”, says Rietbergen. “It isup to the designer to see whether he adjusts the design due to the comments”.Rietbergen established JustProud together with Djon Kleine in October 2009.

Since then the community has reached over 13.000 members worldwide. Keep in mind that you don’t have to work in fashion or beexperienced to join; everyone is welcome to become a member. With work experience in online marketing, Rietbergen knows better than anyone how to launch a product on the internet. “In October we launched a pre-site, where we explained the concept. At this moment we have a more developed beta-version of the site, thefinal version will be launched after the summer. The online store will be available in May so you can see thefirst designs”.

JUSTPROUD is initiative from the people of BALLSMEDIA. Where they used to work at the agency-sideconsulting multinationals like Unilever, PepsiCo, KLM etc, now they focus on realizing projects where people(like you and me) are really involved & really get the direct benefits of. BALLSMEDIA is located in MountainView (CA, USA), The Hague (Holland) & Shanghai (China).