A new fashion shopping app promises to offer the ultimate in convenience, delivering your purchases in under 90 minutes. NIFT (an acronym for Need It For Tonight) connects users with local independent labels across London, allowing for swift delivery – perfect for solving any last-minute sartorial dilemmas.
While we’re all for mindful spending – particularly during party season – sometimes busy schedules and late-notice invites mean that you’re left with nothing appropriate to wear. Perhaps an order didn’t make it to you on time, or didn’t fit, leaving you back to square one with outfit planning.
NIFT stocks much-loved brands like Gucci, Miu Miu, Ganni, Rixo and Jimmy Choo as well as countless others by smaller labels from boutique stores, all of which can be delivered to direct to your door within an hour and a half.
It’s this love for independent brands that drove sisters Simone and Roxanne Oloman to launch their app. “Our passion lies in showcasing these hidden gems and promoting the stores, encouraging customers to explore the offerings available locally to them instead of always opting for mainstream brands,” says one-half of NIFT, Roxanne. The app is also using its presence to promote sustainable shopping over the fast-fashion giants that dominate the online experience. “We have carefully curated our app to include conscious and luxury brands; we want to include only quality labels that extend the lifespan of their products, as opposed to fast-fashion brands that often result in disposability after minimal use,” says Simone.
We spoke to the co-founders to find out more about the concept behind their app, misconceptions in fashion and what’s next for NIFT.
How did you come up with the concept of NIFT?
SO: “Roxanne had experienced a late delivery for an item that she had planned to wear for an event later that day. It led us into a conversation about just how flawed delivery is in London: late and long deliveries, missed deliveries, inability to track orders, environmentally unfriendly deliveries. It dawned on us both that while the city has many incredible on-demand delivery apps, there was no equivalent service for fashion – where people could get access to quality brands and shops without the fear of a missed delivery. Despite the incredible range of independent and local stores across London, there didn’t seem to be a way for customers to discover what was in their area like you can with food delivery apps. And so we created our app, enabling customers to get access to boutiques and brands in under 90 minutes.”
Your app connects consumers to local shops and boutique labels as well as the luxury brands – why was that important to you?
RO: “There are so many incredible boutiques and independent stores in London that often get overlooked by people, particularly when it comes to online shopping. Our passion lies in showcasing these hidden gems and promoting the stores, encouraging customers to explore the offerings available locally to them instead of only opting for mainstream brands. By aiding boutiques and brands in achieving deliveries in under 90 minutes, it means they can keep up with the bigger retailers, too. With the unfortunate closure of so many shops, our aim is to attract new customers to smaller stores, serving as a digital extension of their physical presence.”
How does your app help us shop in a greener way?
SO: “We have carefully curated our app to include conscious and luxury brands; we want to include only quality labels that extend the lifespan of their products, as opposed to fast-fashion brands that often result in disposability after minimal use. Central to the essence of NIFT is the promotion of local shopping, where we encourage users to explore what’s in their area, and we will deliver it in under 90 minutes. By facilitating fulfilment from local stores, last-mile deliveries lower emissions by 17 to 26 per cent.”
RO: “Our commitment extends to prioritising sustainable transportation methods, coupled with efficient routing and embedded real-time delivery tracking. Our approach aims to minimise the likelihood of missed or delayed deliveries, ensuring a seamless and reliable customer experience.”
What do you think needs to change in the industry, to make it more sustainable?
RO: “Consumer education. If more consumers were educated about the environmental impacts of their choices it would really help. Having supply chain transparency would help feed into this as it ensures that consumers have access to information about how products are produced and distributed, allowing them to support businesses that actually align with their values.”
What do you wish people knew more about when it comes to the fashion industry?
SO: “It’s crucial for people to be more aware of the significant environmental consequences associated with fast fashion. The rapid production of low-quality, one-off garments contributes substantially to pollution, resource depletion, and increased waste. People aren’t always educated enough on where these garments have come from and often they’re produced through unethical labour practices. By understanding these aspects, customers can make more informed choices about their clothing purchases, opting for quality and ethical alternatives.”
What’s the smallest change a consumer could make to be more eco-conscious?
SO: “Buying quality clothes that they truly love and will re-wear as opposed to buying a sale item for the sake of it and never wearing it. It’s something we were both guilty of growing up and are so mindful of now. We really want to encourage all NIFT users to buy what they truly adore and will re-wear.”
What do you think the biggest misconception about sustainable fashion is?
RO: “One of the biggest misconceptions about sustainable fashion is that it’s always expensive. While it’s true that some sustainable fashion items can be pricier due to the use of quality materials, it’s not the case for all. There are affordable and sustainable options available, and many conscious brands are working to make their products more accessible.”
What’s next for NIFT?
RO: “We’ve got a lot of exciting plans for the future including releasing a website version of our app and many new exciting brands and boutiques in the pipeline, too. We’d love to continue to grow and expand to other cities in the future.”
NIFT is currently only available for customers who live in London.