Boon + Gable

Boon + Gable operated as a personal styling service targeting individuals seeking a more efficient and personalized clothes shopping experience. The company was founded in 2015 by Diane Loviglio, Nicole Chiu-Wang, and Gilman Tolle, and it ceased operations after being acquired by Google in 2018. The service was born from CEO Diane Loviglio's personal frustrations with the time-consuming and often fruitless nature of in-store and online shopping. Loviglio's background as the first qualitative User Experience Researcher at Mozilla and co-founder of FailCon informed the user-centric approach of the business. Co-founder and COO Nicole Chiu-Wang brought experience from the designer jewelry subscription service Rocksbox and a background as a trademark attorney, which transitioned into a focus on user experience design and fashion.

The business model was centered on providing an in-home personal stylist who would arrive at a client's home with a curated selection of approximately 20 clothing items. This model blended technology with a human touch, aiming to solve the common problems of fit and style that plague online shopping, and the inefficiency of browsing physical stores. The company did not hold any inventory itself; instead, it leveraged technology to catalog items available in local retail stores. Its recommendation engine, named "Clark," would filter through tens of thousands of locally available items based on a client's profile, which included sizes, budget, and style preferences. A human stylist then made the final selection to bring to the client's one-hour home visit. This allowed clients to try on clothes with their existing wardrobe immediately available for pairing.

Revenue was generated from the sale of the clothing items the clients chose to keep. The stylists were paid a wage, which was not dependent on commission, to ensure they provided honest feedback rather than pushing for a sale. Boon + Gable raised a single seed funding round of $2.5 million in June 2016, with investors including Crosscut Ventures and Crosslink Capital. The service operated primarily in the San Francisco area. After four years of styling thousands of clients and cataloging over 100,000 items from more than 750 brands, the team and its technology were acquired by Google to continue their work on a larger scale.

Keywords: personal styling service, in-home shopping, fashion technology, personal shopper app, clothing curation, retail tech, Diane Loviglio, Nicole Chiu-Wang, Gilman Tolle, try-at-home, fashion delivery, style advice, wardrobe consulting, machine learning fashion, inventoryless retail, San Francisco startup, Google acquisition, e-commerce, customer experience, bespoke fashion