My Closet’s Keeper
Project Y X, a members-only wardrobe-integration
service, merges high tech with high style.
“You never wear plaid!
You hate your legs! You
love Valentino!”
Rafael Ortiz laughs as he reveals
the kinds of intimate fashion secrets
that are at the heart of Project YX,
his new high-end digital wardrobe
service. Ortiz explains how it all began:
A few years ago, while shopping in an
expensive store—a place he patronized
often—in Silicon Valley, he noticed
another customer being offered all
kinds of special services. “Can I have
that, too?” he asked a salesperson. The
answer was no—this pampering was
available only to clients who forked
over north of $100,000 a year.
As it does with every entrepreneurial
mind, a lightbulb went off. “I was
very selfish—I wanted that kind of
service for myself,” Ortiz says. So
he got together with his friend Sara
Hirsch—the two had met at a dinner
party at Sheryl Sandberg’s house
a decade ago—and they realized
they could harness some emerging
technology to bring what they call
“wardrobe integration” to a whole new
level. Ortiz had experience in the retail
world, having cofounded NexTag, a
comparison-shopping site, in 1999;
Hirsch, Project YX’s vice president of
private client development, had been
a project designer at a Bay Area firm.
The duo hunkered down for two
years in Silicon Valley with a roster
of tech geniuses and have now
proudly launched a business that is
part personal shopper, part stylist,
part curator, part e-commerce site,
and part maintenance provider—
a service that offers a firm but
gentle intervention when we are
overwhelmed with questions of how
we consume, what we should keep,
what we should discard, and how we
might streamline our lives.
Ortiz details exactly how it works:
After an intensive vetting process
(most clients are recommended by
word of mouth, and not everyone
makes the cut!), you sign up—there’s
a onetime fee, which starts at $6,000,
and a monthly retainer—and a staff
member comes to your house for
a major closet edit (yes, there may
be tears). Most everything that
survives the purge—every cashmere
sweater; every single earring you
possess—is photographed and then
returned to your home. (A beloved
jacket with a sad, shredded lining may
disappear for a few days, only to show
up magically restored.)
FASHION
INTELLIGENT DESIGN
WITH PROJECT YX, THE FUNCTIONS OF
AN ORGANIZER AND A STYLIST ARE ROLLED
INTO A SINGLE WEB-BASED SERVICE.
FASHION>66
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LEFT: DAVID PRINCE/OFFSET BY SHUTTERSTOCK (2); LANCE GOLD/GETTY IM
AGES; TERRYJ/GETTY IM
AGES. COURTESY OF APPLE INC.
64 JUNE 2019 VOGUE.COM
