Building a Behavior-Change Product in a Scroll-Addicted World with Julia Dietmar of Open Wardrobe
Fashion is a massive environmental problem - but Julia Dietmar isn’t building Open Wardrobe as a guilt machine. She’s building it as a behavior-change product: a platform that digitizes your closet, uses AI to help you create outfits, and plugs into resale + repairs so “mindful” becomes frictionless.
In this episode, Emily Jean sits down with Julia Dietmar, founder of Open Wardrobe, to unpack the operator side of building in fashion tech: why her retail background (Walmart), resale exposure (thredUP), and personalization work shaped the product, how she thinks about training AI responsibly, and what it takes to convince consumers to do the one thing every marketplace-adjacent product needs - take the first action.
If you care about consumer startups, AI personalization, or building products that actually change habits, this one is a playbook: meet users at the moment of purchase, reduce returns, and turn “sustainability” into a repeatable business model - without selling user privacy.
How Julia’s path (engineering - product - Walmart - thredUP) built the foundation for Open Wardrobe
Designing around a hard truth: behavior change is opt-in
The biggest hurdle: onboarding work (digitizing a closet) and how value compounds after
Training an AI model on real outfit behavior - while keeping wardrobes private
Why most ecommerce “recommendations” are lazy (and what smarter personalization looks like)
The browser extension strategy: intercepting decisions at checkout
Building AI as education + creativity (not authority) to increase trust and adoption
What a few hundred thousand users reveal about closets, occasion wear, and shopping patterns
Roadmap: turning Lola into a personal shopper - and “voice of conscience”
Founder frameworks: The Innovator’s Dilemma and “Jobs to Be Done”
This episode is a reminder: the best consumer products don’t just delight - they change behavior, reduce friction at the right moment, and still make the business work.
⸻
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
If you loved today’s conversation, please rate, review, and subscribe to Founders in Jeans - the podcast celebrating women claiming their worth in business, leadership, and life.
⸻
💌 Build the life you deserve - on your own terms. Subscribe to the Founders in Jeans newsletter, the no-BS guide to startup life, consumer brands, and becoming your most confident, successful self, written by Emily Jean. Join 50,000+ women redefining wealth, community, and growth: https://foundersinjeans.beehiiv.com/subscribe
⸻
Follow Emily: https://www.instagram.com/emily.jeans/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-jeans/
⸻
Follow Founders in Jeans: https://www.instagram.com/foundersinjeans/
⸻
Follow Julia Dietmar of Open Wardrobe: www.openwardrobe.co @openwardrobe
⸻
consumer startup, building consumer app, fashion tech startup, AI consumer product, building with AI, product-led growth, behavior change product, habit change startup, onboarding friction, retention strategy, personalization AI, ecommerce recommendations, AI styling assistant, browser extension startup, multi-platform product strategy, training AI models, ethical AI privacy, user data privacy, founder-led product, product management lessons, Walmart acquisition experience, retail tech, thredUP resale marketplace, resale integrations, Poshmark integration, partnerships strategy, repairs and alterations marketplace, sustainable commerce business model, reducing returns ecommerce, conversion optimization, customer insight strategy, jobs to be done framework, Innovator’s Dilemma, innovation strategy, consumer behavior insights, scaling a consumer platform, user research insights, wardrobe digitization, closet management app, AI shopping assistant, building trust with users, startup roadmap, female founders, women in tech founders, Founders in Jeans podcast, Emily Jean interviews, startup founder story, consumer brand founders, growth loops, marketplace-adjacent startup
Transcript:
Emily Jean (00:00)
If fashion as an industry was a country, it would be the third largest polluter. The environmental impact is huge. Crazy. What do you think is the real environmental cost of our current fashion habits? Annually, we are putting 11.3 million tons of textiles out on landfills in the world.
For any garment to be considered sustainable, it needs to be worn at least 30 times. Compare that to the average. On average, a garment is worn seven times. One of the reasons why people don't wear ⁓ garments as much, they just get bored. A lot of times it's because you bought that sweater to wear with that pair of pants and you didn't imagine anything beyond that, right? Before I started working on open wardrobe, I was buying something probably, wow.
Emily Jean (00:55)
welcome to or welcome back to Founders in Jeans. I'm your host, Emily Jean. And before we get into the episode, I just want to say a huge thank you so much for listening to my podcast. It means the world to me.
And yeah, I just wanted to come on here and say thank you so much. I also wanted to say that if you enjoy the show, feel free to leave a review on Spotify or Apple, wherever you're listening to this, and also to follow us. You can follow us on Spotify, of course. You can follow us on Instagram at Founders in Jeans You can also find me on Instagram at Emily.Jeans.
or you can look me up on LinkedIn. I'm always happy to connect with people on there and I have a lot of good conversations from listeners. Also, you can always leave a bad review for us. I'm totally fine with that. And in fact, I think that's exciting. I would love to know what we can do to improve. So you can also leave comments below and let me know what you enjoyed, what you didn't enjoy. I actually do read every single one.
We also have a newsletter that comes out once a week so you can get all the updates from us. also put in
some weekly business and marketing updates in there, as well as some personal notes from me. You can subscribe to that on my LinkedIn, also through the Instagram and in the show notes below. Anyways, that is all from me. I'm so excited for you to listen to this episode. I hope it's a good one and I'll chat to you soon. Bye.
Emily Jean (02:32)
Julia Ditmer of Open Wardrobe. Thank you so much for joining me today. Welcome to Founders and Jeans.
Julia Dietmar (02:39)
Hi Emily, nice meeting you and nice to be here.
Emily Jean (02:41)
Hi, thank you. So why don't you give a little bit of background about you for people who have not heard of you yet.
Julia Dietmar (02:49)
Okay, so my background, I'm an engineer, software engineer by my first education. And I spent first third of my career coding. And then I decided to be kind of closer to the business side and to the customer. And then I switched to being a product manager. And I've worked for many companies from financial services to
deep tech, software services. And then in 2010, I was working for a startup that got acquired by Walmart, and that's how I got into retail. So it was almost accidental. And Walmart is a very good education if you want to learn retail business.
And for different verticals, I was working with merchants in home decor and office supplies and apparel, learning a lot of different ways of how to work with vendors and how to work with suppliers and what the challenges are. And apparel kind of was really, really fascinating to me because it's one of those
retail verticals where it's very difficult to predict what people will want and will want to buy beyond basics. Every item is pretty much unique. You don't have universal product codes. It's very difficult to compare things. So lots of different challenges. So that's kind of how I got into apparel and why I wanted to be more in kind of apparel fashion space.
And then ⁓ after that, after Walmart, I went to a company that was super small at the time called ThreadUp. They are a marketplace for secondhand women's and children's clothing. And that's kind of how I got into sustainability space. And then AI happened with my next job. I was working for a deep tech where we were building.
personalization, specifically for personalization, AI for retailers. And we've worked with a lot of different apparel brands around the world. So, and here I am right now, building Open Wardrobe.
Emily Jean (05:00)
So can you give me kind of a high level overview of what open wardrobe is and what it does?
Julia Dietmar (05:07)
Yeah, we call it a platform for mindful dressing. But what this really is, it's set of tools that help you digitize your wardrobe, manage your outfits, pre-plan your outfits. We have AI that helps you with all of that. And then for clothing that you no longer want, we have integrations with secondhand marketplaces where you can just with one button click.
listed on your account at Poshmark, for example. Also, we have integrations with services like alterations and repairs. So if you really need ⁓ anything altered, you need your trousers hemmed or silhouettes leaned or something, you can order through the platform. So it's really kind of a set of tools that help you manage your daily chore of getting dressed.
Emily Jean (05:55)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And when did you guys roll out Open Wardrobe?
Julia Dietmar (05:55)
and not get stressed about it.
⁓ We are coming up to four years now. So it's going to be four years in November.
Emily Jean (06:04)
OK.
Yeah, so a decent amount of time. So I guess I'm curious. I want to just dive in here. Was there kind of a specific moment that sparked the idea for it? Or how did that, what's the origin story there for Open Wardrobe?
Julia Dietmar (06:18)
Yeah, so the origin story, as I mentioned, I was working with a lot of apparel brands and they were all asking pretty much the same question in a different way, but the same question. And the question was, how do I know more about the customer and how do I really understand the customer? And that's how kind of the idea started. It was back in 2018, I want to say, when I kind of first started thinking about it.
And then it kind of evolved. That idea was marinating in my head. then during COVID, when we were all stuck at home and I was staring at my closet and seeing the mess and how unmanageable it was, I started thinking about just, you know, would be nice to have the tool where I could see everything that I have and then organize and even, you know, manage my...
not just my daily outfits, but my clothing if I don't want anything, how can I resell it right from the platform? Not necessarily the platform being the resell of record, but with through integrations. So that's how it started. It started during COVID, it probably a lot of ideas, new ideas, but yeah.
Emily Jean (07:28)
Okay, got it. And so I guess I'm curious. I know that you have just kind of touched on this, but your journey has really taken you from computer science and an MBA, and now you're building this AI powered fashion platform. So I want to go back in time a little bit. And how have you been able to connect these things, computer science and MBA?
Julia Dietmar (07:42)
Mm-hmm.
I did get my MBA, but I stayed in tech. I worked for Yahoo after I completed my MBA and then...
basically tech companies since then. And the way it kind of evolved, my very first product management job was a technical product manager. So I was building very technical platforms. And then gradually, gradually, it kind of moved more towards the customer. So.
And then fashion, I kind of explain how it happened, but when I started building open wardrobe, that's kind of another funny story. I always wanted it to be AI enabled and provide educational tools for people. just kind of a assistant AI, not necessarily the authority over everything, but somebody to help you. It's just like your styling assistant, right? You can.
ask very quick questions like how do I wear this or does this suit me or should I buy this, right? And in order to build that AI and train that AI, I needed to understand the theory behind it. So I became certified image consultant. So I went and trained as a color consultant and personal stylist. So just to understand the theory. So that's kind of how it all came together at the end.
Emily Jean (09:05)
Yeah, got it. So I want to talk a little bit about fashion and consumption because you touched on before your background in sustainability and thinking about how that applies to clothing. So I know that there is a lot to talk about the kind of environmental detriments of our current fashion habits, but I would say I don't have a really firm grasp on what that actually looks like.
Julia Dietmar (09:12)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Emily Jean (09:32)
from your perspective, what you think is the real environmental cost of our current fashion habits.
Julia Dietmar (09:38)
So I'll give you a few stats that kind of will put stuff in perspective. So annually, we are putting 11.3 million tons of textiles out on landfills. 11.3 million tons. crazy, So that's kind of one statistic. On the production side, the...
Emily Jean (09:51)
Crazy.
Julia Dietmar (09:58)
pollution, the water consumption, and environmental impact is huge. So if fashion as an industry was a country, it would be the third largest polluter.
Emily Jean (10:09)
crazy. Yeah.
Julia Dietmar (10:10)
in the world,
if you're comparing it to countries. So that's definitely huge. What we're not addressing with our tools and what we're helping people to do, we're not addressing the production side. So that's brands, and there are lots of great companies that are helping with that. What we're trying to do is we're trying to empower consumers to make smart decisions and at least not eliminate
all the clothing that goes to landfill, but at least reduce it, right? And how we do that is by providing these tools. So we are helping you use what you already have instead of buying new, or if you do need to buy new or you want to buy new, we're giving you tools to make better decisions so that when you actually buy it, you will wear it, not return it, and not just...
keep it in your closet, but you will wear it and then you will get use out of it. another statistic, you can tell I like numbers. Another statistic is that for any garment, regardless of how it was produced, for any garment to be considered sustainable, it needs to be worn at least 30 times. Compare that to the average.
On average, a garment ⁓ is worn seven times today. So how do you extend the life of the garment and be worn 30 times? First, you kind of, just need to be creative of how you're putting outfits together and we're helping you do that, right? Just kind of spark your creativity. Second one is durability, right? So if something is starting to fall apart, we help you repair it or alter it or do something like that.
Or if you don't want it anymore, we help you resell it and maybe find a second home. So that's what we're trying to address.
Emily Jean (11:53)
Yeah.
So I want to, I'm curious, immediately when you say that about a garment being worn seven times, I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm definitely guilty of that. I think too, I want to touch on the gendered aspect of this, because I'm thinking about my dad, for example, like he would wear, buy one sweater and he'd it for the rest of his life. But I think,
me and my sisters are significantly less likely to do that. Why do you think that is and how do you then approach that, I guess, looking at it from a, well, there's different experiences for a guy versus a girl.
Julia Dietmar (12:30)
So, well, first of all, yes, it's gender, but it's also generational. So if I remember like my grandmother, all her dresses were handmade for her body. They all fit her perfectly and she wore them for decades. So it's both. But let's address the gender. Yeah, you're absolutely right. it's, first of all, for guys, there's always less choice.
there's always more choice for women. If you walk into any department store, there will be like half a floor for men or a floor for men and then three or four floors for women. So that's one thing. And then for another thing is it's really cultural, right? So if you look at the glossy magazines, like women need to doll up and then women need to dress up. And so it's that. And also all of the influencing that's been going on
Emily Jean (12:54)
Hmm.
Julia Dietmar (13:18)
in the last, I don't know, 20 years or so. Really with, you know, unboxing and putting value on new stuff rather than quality stuff. I think that's, that kind of makes that problem a bit worse.
one more thing that I wanted to mention is...
⁓ You mentioned that you're guilty of not wearing stuff a lot. Why is that? I just, want to ask you.
Emily Jean (13:40)
Yeah, it's
a good question. I would say for me, I'm sure everybody's different, but I think that shopping, it kind of comes with this addictive quality. Like you get a new package, you're putting on new clothes, you're like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. And the sad thing is too, I might buy something and love it, but I probably wear 20 % of my closet 80 % of the time, you know? Which I think, yeah, I think that's very normal.
Julia Dietmar (13:51)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that's normal.
Emily Jean (14:08)
So for me and for other people listening to this, how do you help people, I guess, fall in love, fall back in love with the clothes they already own?
Julia Dietmar (14:17)
Yeah, so again, sparking your creativity. One of the reasons why people don't wear ⁓ garments as much, they just get bored. Right? And why do you get bored? A lot of times it's because you bought that sweater to wear with that pair of pants and you didn't imagine anything beyond that. Right? So one of the tools we have is just kind of giving you different combinations.
Emily Jean (14:35)
Hmm.
Julia Dietmar (14:41)
of how you can combine that sweater with everything else you already own to make different outfits. So that's one. Another one is really helping you understand your style personality, so to speak, right? So because when you buy something, not because you love it, but because somebody else...
influenced you to buy it, whether it was a salesperson or a friend, or you saw it on the model somewhere and it looked amazing and you wanted that. But when you bought it and put it on yourself, it was not as amazing because your body is different, your coloring is different, right? So we're trying to educate you to not try to feed into somebody else's mold and really understand yourself and be mindful when you're shopping.
Yes, I saw that dress on that person in orange, but orange is not my color, right? So maybe I will buy something else or I will buy that in my color. So that's how we're kind of helping people fall in love with what they already have and understand that if they don't love it, why?
Emily Jean (15:49)
Hmm.
Interesting. guess I want to... Okay, I have a question for you personally. How often do you buy new clothes in general, like in the year? And how many new clothes are you buying?
Julia Dietmar (15:54)
Okay.
Before I started working on open wardrobe, I was buying something probably every week. Yeah, I was like a shopaholic in terms of I would go, let's say I would drop off my son at his activity and like instead of waiting by the door, I would just go in the neighbor's boutique and buy something. So that was very normal for me. And then of course got out of control.
Emily Jean (16:08)
Wow. Okay. Yeah.
Yes.
Right.
Julia Dietmar (16:28)
Now with open wardrobe and also granted I don't go to the office every day, right? So I don't need to dress up every day. So now I probably buy maybe five pieces a year.
Emily Jean (16:41)
Okay, wow, yeah, significant reduction.
Julia Dietmar (16:43)
significant reduction and well, first of all, you know, like my bank account is very happy or my credit card is very happy. But it's also I'm a lot, a lot more mindful of how I buy. I used to be one of those people, I would, you know, there are some colors that I just like as colors, but they don't look good on me. And I was really trying to make them work.
Emily Jean (16:50)
Yeah.
Julia Dietmar (17:07)
without understanding, they just stop trying. So yeah, it's become a lot, a lot less.
Emily Jean (17:14)
Yeah, I think there are some people that's going to hear that and they're going to feel like, could never, I can't imagine doing anything like that. So I want to, how do you, guess, balance style with sustainability without making people feel restricted?
Julia Dietmar (17:32)
⁓ I don't feel that sustainability is related to being restricted. It's not. And you can, of course, tell yourself, I'm not going to buy anything just because, right? But you don't have to. Being sustainable to me is really being mindful of if you are bringing something, and I'm talking about clothing specifically.
If you're bringing something in your closet, there's a good reason for it. The reason could be you just love that item, but you know that you're gonna wear it many times, right? So as long as you know that it's something that you will love and use for a while, there's absolutely no reason to be restricted.
Emily Jean (18:10)
Yeah, yeah. For me, and I think this might be a common thing for other women in different ways, but I'm really tall. So it's really, really difficult for me to find pants or jeans. So any opportunity that I do find a pair of pants or jeans that are long enough for me, I'll take it and I'll buy three, for example, because I have never been able...
to have like a lot of pants in the closet basically. So my question is, guess, for women who are struggling with size constraints or different body constraints as it applies to shopping, how do you kind of balance, I feel like I need this because I hardly ever find things that fit me this way. And also I don't wanna over consume.
Julia Dietmar (18:56)
Well, if you need this, then you do not overconsume because you need it, you're gonna use it, right? By the way, I'm completely opposite of you. So I'm a foot shorter than you. I am, I pretty much everything I buy, I need altered because I'm just not very standard in terms of the size and body shape.
Emily Jean (19:10)
Mm-hmm.
Julia Dietmar (19:17)
But because I need it altered, and alterations oftentimes comes with extra expense, that makes me very often think, is it worth it? And one more thing that I would say for people who are kind of not standard, really consider investing in tailoring.
Emily Jean (19:39)
Mm.
Julia Dietmar (19:40)
items made custom for you. I've done it several times. sounds expensive, but it doesn't have to be. And you choose your fabrics, you choose the styles, it's made to your body, and it is something that is going to serve you for years.
Emily Jean (19:42)
Thank
Mm-hmm, got it. I think that's very good advice. Yeah, and that's true for everybody. I think it's fairly rare to go into a store for most people and be able to find something that fits you well right off the rack.
Julia Dietmar (19:59)
And that's sustainable.
That's correct.
Yeah, that's correct. Because none of us are that perfect whatever mold that's been used,
Emily Jean (20:18)
Right, right.
So I want to get more into the technical side of things here. I want to ask how does OpenMordrobe actually work from a tech perspective?
Julia Dietmar (20:31)
Mm-hmm. So we have, as I mentioned, we have several tools, So there are a couple of ways that somebody can start using OpenWardrobe. So you can digitize your closet. And if you digitize your closet, all the data is stored in our servers and everything is backed up and you don't have to worry about losing anything,
And then we have our AI, which is trained on millions of outfits that our customers have saved. So either by creating outfits themselves or by using stylists or even saving suggestions from our AI. So that kind of forms this foundational model. And then when you start interacting with it, it starts learning about your specific...
preferences and your specific quirks, if you will. So if it can understand that, for example, you're somebody who loves floral on floral, then it starts adjusting the suggestions. So that's at a high level without getting too technical. That's how it works. There is a website or web app. There is a mobile app. And we also have a browser extension. And what that does...
is you, whenever you're shopping online, you can access your digitized wardrobe if you chose to digitize it. And our AI, by the way, has a name. Her name is Lola. It's a she. So you can access your wardrobe and you can access Lola AI from any e-commerce site. So when you're, let's say, shopping online and you're looking for a pair of pants, you found this perfect pair of pants that will fit you.
You can say, show me how I can wear it with what I already own. And it'll start speeding out outfits, which you can then very quickly, again, kind of a decision-making there. Can you wear it 30 times at least? So very quickly, it'll show you that you can wear it so many more times. Yeah, yeah, so you're basically kind of becoming a lot more mindful when you're shopping.
Emily Jean (22:20)
noise.
Julia Dietmar (22:29)
making these decisions ahead of time to be able to just buy it and actually use it, not return it.
Emily Jean (22:37)
Do you have any surprising insights that have come up like looking at your platform data from learning from that?
Julia Dietmar (22:43)
Yeah, so I mean, I don't know if I was that surprised, but the 80-20 rule that you mentioned, that's very, very normal, very common. Interesting thing is that people in the cities, they have a lot more occasion wear than people in the suburbs. And that is actually something that's not worn very often, but that's part of the 80 % of the closet that's worn 20 times, 20%, right?
So that was very interesting. And then the most interesting thing was ⁓ not really data based, but anecdotal. That's when people write to us and say, ⁓ you cured my shopping addiction, or you helped with my HD, you know, my deficit disorder. Or people said that they had
huge closets, nothing to wear, and now they have small closets and it can go a year without repeating an outfit. So those kind of things are a lot more rewarding than just looking at the data. I love our data. ⁓ Another thing I learned, and that's purely from our data, that for women specifically, 30 % of their closets are typically in tops. Which I don't know if it's surprising, I think it makes sense, right?
Emily Jean (23:43)
Yeah.
interesting.
Julia Dietmar (23:57)
that tops would be 30 % of your closet. And then the second category, I would have thought it would be dresses, but it's not. You wanna guess what it is? Yes, shoes.
Emily Jean (24:07)
shoes. I'm
like thinking of all my shoes I have back here.
Julia Dietmar (24:12)
Yeah.
Emily Jean (24:13)
OK, that makes sense. Interesting. So interesting to hear about that. dresses would have made sense too. You must get some very interesting insights out of that. How many users do you guys have on the platform right now?
Julia Dietmar (24:23)
Yeah.
We have a few hundred thousand.
Emily Jean (24:28)
Okay, wow, so very significant, So I want to, are there any misconceptions that you think people have about AI as it applies to AI in fashion?
Julia Dietmar (24:39)
I don't know about misconceptions. I think there are some theories about how recommendations are being made. And I'm talking about e-commerce sites, right? Because it's all driven by AI, whether it's obvious or not, it's all driven by AI. And the...
Emily Jean (24:57)
Right.
Julia Dietmar (24:58)
Traditionally, that AI has not been very smart. As in you buy a pink blouse, we're going to recommend you more pink blouses, right? Instead of, we're going to recommend you what goes with it or stuff like that. So it's getting much, much better and much smarter, especially in the last three, four years. One thing about our AI, and that's what I'm kind of trying to explain to everybody, it's not designed to become your perfect
Here's the outfit that you're gonna wear and it's gonna be, it's really about education and creativity and equipping you, empowering you to become more mindful in how you're getting dressed. So AI is just a tool. It's not.
It's not the solution, right? It's just a tool and tool and or another signal or another, you can use a friend. You can ask a friend. You can ask your sister. You can ask AI.
Emily Jean (25:49)
Yeah. As it applies to AI and the ethical concerns around AI, especially, you know, sustainability wise, what are your thoughts there? How have you been able to manage and balance that?
Julia Dietmar (26:03)
⁓ Well, for us specifically, everybody's data is very private. So you can only see your own wardrobe unless you choose to open it up to others. And when you do choose that, you can choose to do it to everybody or to select a group of friends, stylists, whoever. So in that regard, we are not using people's data for anything else except for training.
like showing our AI what's a good outfit, what's not a good outfit, right? So kind of training it on that. even in that, do not, no personal data is used. It's just pictures, like photos. That's when it concerned about open world specifically. In general though, I think AI is really helping right now, especially in supply chain.
So how do you make sure that the, whatever you're sourcing to making your garments, I'm talking about brands specifically, that you reduce the steps, you are doing kind of just in time production, or as much as you can. Obviously you can't do just in time in fashion, it's typically 18 month cycles.
But AI is really helping to reduce that and reduce waste. I've seen an amazing, absolutely amazing tools that are using AI for cutting textiles for garments to reduce waste.
So it can really be precise in how to cut materials so that there is virtually no waste or very little waste. So that is definitely, definitely helping. And we are just scratching the surface right now.
Emily Jean (27:35)
Changing gears a little bit, wanted to, okay, I'm curious, what's been the most difficult part so far about getting people to change how they shop and dress?
Julia Dietmar (27:46)
You know, it's really up to a person to really decide to change how they shop and dress. Until you kind of decide that you're going to do something differently, nobody can influence you or nobody can tell you. For us, of course, I mean, our platform is not frictionless. You have to do some work in order to get full benefits out of it.
meaning you have to photograph your items and upload and digitize. We make it super easy, but people still need to do something. So that's been a hurdle, but it's definitely worth it. As soon as that is done, you get a ton of value out of it. What's been less difficult is to provide this educational materials. People are really, really wanting to understand
themselves better, the body shapes, the colors, the personality, right? And so that is kind of surprisingly been one of the things that people have been gravitating towards, especially older people, surprisingly. So that was kind of a bit of a aha moment for me. But...
Yeah, mean, it's very... My philosophy is I'm not here to change you. I'm here to help you if you want to change yourself.
Emily Jean (28:59)
Hmm. I love that. I think that's a great philosophy. I want to ask you about your personal closet a little bit, because obviously you've been doing this for a while now. I'm very curious. Is there a kind of weirdest item of clothing you own or something that you're like, could never part with this?
Julia Dietmar (29:05)
Mm-hmm.
I'm not sure about weirdness, but I've had, have a few items that I've had for many years. So I have one blazer by now it's vintage because I've had it since mid nineties. So, and I bought it, it's from a brand that doesn't exist anymore. So Versace used to have kind of a lower end brand called Versus. I think that they were calling it.
And that blazer I still have and it's amazing. I get ton of compliments and it's super great quality and I've had it for years and years. then I have also, so that's actually kind of quite an interesting story. So when I finished my MBA, as I studied in France, a friend of mine came and we went to Paris.
And we just did like a shopping day and I didn't have a lot, a lot of money at the time, but we went to a Kenzo store and I bought four items. still, it's been 20 years. I still remember the salesperson. I still have every single item. I still wear every single item. And it's probably one of those things that I will never part with because the quality is amazing. It's never going to go out of style. And it's like.
kind of sentimental. It was a gift from me to me for my graduation and those items I still have.
Emily Jean (30:33)
of stories like that. I think everybody has something like that in their closet. I think it's very special. If you could raid anyone's wardrobe in history, whose would it be?
Julia Dietmar (30:44)
Well, I don't want to be sound like a cliche. Of course, I would want I would love to rate Coco Chanel's wardrobe because she was the first she went against all conventions. Right. Like she dressed completely differently from any woman of her time, and she was completely unconventional. So I would have loved and she saw everything herself. So obviously that would be amazing.
Emily Jean (30:51)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Julia Dietmar (31:10)
Who else? I don't know if there's anybody else. I never thought about it. I need to think about it more. Yeah.
Emily Jean (31:14)
Really? Yeah.
I feel like for me, like, this is also maybe a little bit basic, but Audrey Hepburn is like, love, I just feel like so classic. Yeah. Everything. And I feel like too, even though she's very skinny, obviously in slender, I feel like a lot of what she wore would look good on almost anyone. Really do think that. Yeah.
Julia Dietmar (31:21)
yeah, of course. Yeah, her style. Yeah.
Yeah, I agree
with you. I agree with you. Because it's all very kind of understated, but so elegant, right?
Emily Jean (31:39)
Totally, Yeah, so chic. what is next? What is the next big vision for OpenMortrobe? Where do you see the platform going to be in about, let's say, five years from now?
Julia Dietmar (31:49)
So five years is probably too long to look. Yeah, let's say two. So we're really working on ⁓ building out skills for our Lola AI, for her to become your personal shopper. Because, I mean, of course I need to combine kind of business viability with sustainability and everything else.
Emily Jean (31:52)
okay, let's do two.
Mm.
Julia Dietmar (32:11)
But what we're training her to do is we're extending our functionality of our browser extension. you can, doesn't matter where you shop online, you can say, it suit me? First of all, it will give you kind of a scoring. And then you can say, should I buy it? Because those are two different questions, right?
Emily Jean (32:35)
Yes. ⁓
Julia Dietmar (32:37)
And then it kind of can be your voice of conscience almost like, you know, you actually have like three other things that are kind of similar. Do you really need it? Right. So stuff like that. So that's kind of our next focus. And from there we'll see. I mean, everything moves so fast. The technology moves so fast these days. So we'll see.
Emily Jean (32:49)
Yeah, smart.
Mm-hmm.
Right, right.
That's fascinating. I can't wait to, that sounds really cool. Do you see the platform ever evolving kind of outside fashion and maybe into other areas of sustainable living?
Julia Dietmar (33:11)
Potentially, yeah, we always envisioned this as ⁓ open X, right? Like open doesn't have to be your wardrobe, it could be anything. So the next most logical thing is your beauty cabinet. But we're not there yet, so eventually, yeah, maybe.
Emily Jean (33:28)
Yeah,
yeah, yeah. Okay, great. Well, I don't want to take up too too much more of your time. So I have some rapid fire questions for you. Okay, my first one is most underrated wardrobe essential.
Julia Dietmar (33:41)
most underrated wardrobe essential, belt.
Emily Jean (33:44)
Ooh, okay. I love that. I don't think I have a belt right now, and I've been thinking lately that I need to get one.
Julia Dietmar (33:46)
For me, yeah.
Yeah,
so I know that not a lot of body types love wearing belts, but I think everybody type can. It's just a different belt, right? And how you wear it. So I think that's good one.
Emily Jean (33:57)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
I like that. Is there one item you regret ever buying?
Julia Dietmar (34:10)
Closing item, you mean, right? Yeah, there is one pair of shoes that I regret buying. I wore it twice. They're very good looking, but they are super heavy. That's from Alexander Wang. And they have like metallic, I don't know what they'll call them. It's like huge bits, but out of metal. And they're kind of painful.
Emily Jean (34:11)
Mm.
Yeah.
Mm.
Really?
Julia Dietmar (34:33)
and
I listed those shoes on Poshmark and they've been there probably for a year, nobody's buying them.
Emily Jean (34:39)
Okay, got it. That's a good answer. Is there a style rule that you think is overrated?
Julia Dietmar (34:45)
⁓ style rule that's overrated is that there is a style rule. mean, there are no rules. mean, you, can understand the theory behind why or something, ⁓ looks good on you or not, but then it's just to inform you. You don't have to follow any rules. so for me, it's just wear whatever you will feel good at, good in, right? And then if you want to show up as...
Emily Jean (34:59)
Mm.
Julia Dietmar (35:09)
something or someone or you want to feel a certain way, clothing can help you with that. yeah, rules are there to be broken.
Emily Jean (35:16)
Love that. Do you have one word to describe your personal style?
Julia Dietmar (35:20)
My personal style is pretty minimal, like minimalistic. But, okay, so one word is not gonna do it right now. So, okay, so I'm pretty minimal, but I like elements of drama. And the drama typically comes in an accessory, not clothing.
Emily Jean (35:23)
Hmm.
That's okay. One sentence.
Okay.
Hmm.
Okay. Okay. Love that. Good answer. feel like minimal is very on brand.
All right, my last question is, do you have a book or a resource or a course or anything along those lines that you can recommend for budding entrepreneurs?
Julia Dietmar (35:58)
yes, anything around innovation. So for example, innovators dilemma book is amazing. Jobs to be done, I don't know if you've heard about it. It's really about looking at a problem in a slightly different way from what we have, how we've been looking at different problems. it's really, if you're looking at clothing.
or an item of clothing or a clothing brand, the question becomes like, is the job that customers are hiring that brand or that item of clothing to do? ⁓ And it doesn't have to be necessarily to keep me from being naked. It's maybe from, it could be to get a date, right? Or it could be to...
Emily Jean (36:32)
Got it.
Mm-hmm.
Julia Dietmar (36:42)
get that perfect job or whatever that is. So it's really from that angle. Innovator's Dilemma is the name of the book.
Emily Jean (36:47)
Interesting.
Okay, got it. I got it. I'll have to look that up. I've not heard of it before. Okay, great. Well, thank you so much for joining me, Julia. Where can people find you and where can they find Open Wardrobe?
Julia Dietmar (37:01)
Open Wardrobe is just go to our website. It's www.openwardrobe.co. It's that co.com. And all the information is going to be there. You can download an app right from there, or you can sign up and use our web app. You can download our browse extension from there. So all the information is
Emily Jean (37:18)
Okay, perfect. Well, thank you so much for joining me. I'm so glad I got to chat to you. Yeah, it's been a great episode. I'm really excited for people to hear this.
Julia Dietmar (37:26)
Thank you for having me.
Emily Jean (37:27)
And that is a wrap.
