About Closet Couture
Closet Couture is a social and fashion utility that connects people of stylish minds with those who live or work around them. CC users manage their wardrobes online, define and refine their personal style, get help if needed, upload unlimited photos, share links and videos, and create their own style cabinet made up of the best and the brightest.
Closet Couture Membership Requirements
To join Closet Couture, enter a valid email address and pledge an allegiance to looking nice. This is all we ask.
Discover The Styles Around You
Closet Couture is made up of many personal networks, each rooted in a style, region, friendship or brand. Join the networks that reflect your real-life communities to learn more about the people who work, live or study around you.
Keep It Private, Please
At Closet Couture, we believe that people should have control over how they share their information and who can see it. Users can only see the full profiles of confirmed friends and the people in their networks. Use our privacy settings at any time to control who can see what on CC.
The Closet Couture Story
I had the idea for Closet Couture in 2006, after a cantankerous, style-challenged year living in Los Angeles. As a child of New England, I grew up under the straight-laced, headband wearing, kilt-obsessed (with the pins to fasten) preppy brigade. LL Bean snowflake sweaters were worn without irony. After a prim Connecticut education, I moved to New York and began interviewing for jobs in publishing wearing conservative suits (Jones New York), square toed loafers (sans penny) and panty hose (believe it.) Born of a sheltered sartorial existence, the process proved to be a much-needed turning point for me; particularly after a future colleague at Random House confided that her only hesitation on hiring me had been my hose. I was not born with the fashion gene nor was acquiring it going to be easy.
Marriage brought me west to Los Angeles where work in television gave me further fashion friction. I resorted to all black, thinking surely this universally safe uniform was coast-agnostic. Unfortunately, the only people who wear head-to-toe black in LA are catering waiters and trainers. After unassisted shopping forays where flushed cheeks accompanied bashful returns, I speed-dialed tolerant New York friends who walked me through climate-appropriate, industry friendly separates that could get me through the next month in Hollywood without embarrassment. Fully aware that these kind amigos would not be available to me 24/7, an idea was born. How could I connect the mutually fashion-interested with one another for quick, easy tips and advice no matter what the predicament, without shame or excruciating phone bills?
Closet Couture was hatched by me, someone flailing in fashion’s cruel arctic breeze, for everyone living under the big tent of universal style; challenged and gifted alike.
Peruse, shop, connect. Getting dressed should be fun!
In allegiance to style,
Christine Elia
Founder
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The Closet Couture Team
Christine Elia - CEO
Chris started ClosetCouture.com to solve the problem of never having anything
to wear despite a brimming closet. Throughout her career, Chris has worked
for women to make their lives better and easier in a concrete fashion. Her
past positions include time as a senior editor for fashion and beauty at My
Generation magazine and web site in New York; an Internet editor during the
launch of iVillage UK in London; in development at ABC and UPN television networks
in Los Angeles. Chris attended Trinity College in Connecticut, graduating with
a BA in Art History and later received an MFA in Motion Picture Producing at
the Peter Stark Program from the University of Southern California Cinema-Television
School.
Sheldon Chang - CTO
Sheldon built his first website in the mid-nineties when NCSA Mosaic was the dominant Web browser. He made his first online friends in 1986 and has been engaged as a member and a builder of online communities longer than most people have had email accounts. Sheldon is Closet Couture's Web guru and is proud to be using his talents now to help people all over the world get dressed in style.
Aihui Ong - Tech Strategist
Aihui has more than 10 years of product development and consulting experience. She started her career with one the Big 4 consulting firms as a technical engineer and project manager and played a key role in several multi-million web implementations in Fortune 500 companies like General Motors, 20th Century Fox and PeopleSoft. Intrigued by all the buzz and excitement of internet startups, without hesitation, she happily said goodbye to the enterprise world and began her Hello Web2.0 journey 3 years ago and is loving it everyday. Aihui is not only thrilled to be part of Closet Couture, she no longer has the problem of "I have nothing to wear".
Anne Ziegler - Style Director
You will find it very difficult to ever catch Anne without her camera, blackberry or Mac in hand. Anne's education at Princeton and her first job at Sigerson Morrison provided the springboard into making a career out of being obsessed with what is next. Since then Anne has helped retail and trend clients including The Limited and ESP Trend and media outlets such as Vogue, Vogue UK and Elle peer into the fashion future. Anne is from LA and now lives in New York and keeps her mother happy by visiting her — and Closet Couture — in LA way too often.
Ashley Roberts, Website Coordinator
Ashley Roberts was raised in Saratoga Springs, NY where residents layer
on North Face fleeces by the armload every winter. She received her education
in Visual Communications from Otis College of Art and Design in LA, where
she was immersed in a kaleidoscope of fashion and graphic design trends and
where she lived by the decree: 'Design never sleeps, so why should you?!'
Ashley handles a variety of responsibilities at Closet Couture, including
the current art direction of Closet Couture's visual design as well as ensuring
every Closet Couture user's experience is fun, useful, and fashion forward.
Justin Berkowitz - Stylist
Justin was raised in Dallas, TX in a most fashionable family. Led
by his super-stylish mother, Justin learned about fashion from the time
he was knee-high. Today, Justin is currently finishing his senior year
at Columbia University, where he majors in art history, interning for
fashion bible Harpers Bazaar and working for Closet Couture.
Victoria Will - Photographer
Victoria lives in New York City with her two French bulldogs and is a staff photographer for The New York Post, where Victoria's focus is on editorial portraits and fashion. She also has covered major news events, including the 2004 Republican National Convention, the Pope's visit to the United States and New York City Fashion Weeks. Victoria's work also frequently appears in national and international magazines, including Elle, BlackBook, Departures and British Vogue. She is a graduate of Princeton University.
Caitlin Thorne - Photographer
Caitlin Thorne has been working in photography for years. She grew up in the Berkshires in Massachusetts and has been living in New York City for almost eight years. She has been working at the New York Post as a studio photographer for more then two years and is now delighted to be a Closet Couture photographer.
Kate Schelter - Founding Creative Director
Kate Schelter designed our logo and directed the initial visual design for Closet Couture.
Closet Couture Advisors
Philippe Soussand
Mr. Soussand is the principal of SOUSSAND ASSOCIATES,LLC, a consulting firm which provides strategic and operational services to leading global fashion brands. Previously, Mr. Soussand was President at the LVMH Fashion Group for the Americas for a number of fashion brands, President of Louis Vuitton for Latin America, CFO of Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior for North America. Mr. Soussand also served as Treasurer of the United Nations Development Program. He holds an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and graduated from the Paris Business School ESCP-EAP.
Eva Jeanbart Lorenzotti - CEO of Vivre.com
Vivre is the creation of Eva Jeanbart Lorenzotti, an entrepreneur with a vision for an inclusive lifestyle brand celebrating the moments large and small that together weave the tapestry that is "A Beautiful Life." Eva's business acumen was honed as an investment banker with the mergers and acquisitions department at Lazard Freres, which she joined after receiving a BA from Columbia University. Born and raised in Switzerland, Eva's deep familiarity with the European culture and her multilingual command of five languages have uniquely positioned her at the center of the rapidly evolving international luxury market.
Constance Klein
Constance is a managing director of the Martens and Heads search firm in New York City where she is responsible for driving relationships with many of the global brands they represent. During her eighteen years in Italy, she worked with top luxury brands including Tods, Hogan, Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta and Sergio Rossi, among others. In addition to her work in the US, she is frequently called on to spearhead searches for talent in Europe and Asia.
Karin Visnick (formerly Salmon)
Karin has more than 10 years in product management and marketing experience at companies ranging from start-ups to major institutions. She helped launch Yahoo! Shopping in 1998. Subsequently, as director of production at Yahoo!, she oversaw the product development for the Yahoo! suite of commerce properties, including auctions, travel, shopping, wallet, and personalization tools. Most recently Karin worked for SNOCAP, an online music service that provides digital licensing and copyright management services for the digital music marketplace, where she held the position of vice president of product management. Karin is an independent consultant for internet start ups. She holds a BA in Mathematics from the University of Virginia.
Paul Woods
Paul is an independent luxury goods consultant with clients including Valentino, Benetton, Pirelli, Cavalli and Ritmo Mundo. Prior to his consulting work, Paul was at Gucci Group serving as President of Gucci Timepieces for the Americas. Paul has honed his dotcom experience as co-founder and SVP Marketing / Business Development of Beauty.com, which he then sold to Drugstore.com in the first dotcom boom. He brings a huge amount of marketing savvy online and in the luxury space, and can currently be seen on ShopNBC with a fabulous watch collection.
Marketing Partnerships
