On April 28, Good Morning America reporter Will Reeve made national headlines after he was caught on camera pairing a blazer and button-down shirt with no pants. In the age of coronavirus, this new style of business on top paired with extremely casual bottoms (or lack thereof) has become the pinnacle of fashion for video call meetings, where only the top half of a person’s body is seen on camera. (Disclosure: During a video interview for this article, even I wore a black suede shirt, gray knit cardigan and a pearl necklace—coupled with pink Adidas workout shorts.)
About 42 percent of Americans were working from home as of June, but according to a new survey from professional social networking platform Fishbowl, just 3 percent of us are wearing work clothes during video meetings.
Vicky and Nikoleta Lirantonakis, two sisters from Salem, Massachusetts, are taking this moment to capitalize on what they see as a new opportunity: professional styling from the waist up only.
The Lirantonakis sisters founded their brick-and-mortar dress rental boutique, Best Dressed, in 2015 but had to shut it down in March with the initial wave of coronavirus-driven closures. During that time, the sisters pivoted from their dress rental business and developed a new Zoom appropriate product: The Style Fílos.
The Style Fílos is a Zoom fashion companion (Fílos means friend in Greek). For $44, customers can purchase a pre-styled box with three curated accessories or design their own box with three accessories of their choice. The accessories, which are shipped to your home, include earrings, makeup, scarves that double as masks, headbands and necklaces.
“With Covid and everything going on in the world right now, renting and events aren't happening as much as they were," said Nikoleta Lirantonakis. "We had to pivot and think of a new idea for our business. That's where these boxes came into play. We always loved our clients and being able to style them for all their events and everything that's going on in their life. And right now, what's going on in their life is Zoom calls."
Located in South Boston, Best Dressed was created to fill a void in the market for dress rental businesses. Unlike online rental businesses like Rent the Runway, Best Dressed offers a physical store where customers can get styled and rent clothes in person. The Style Fílos fills a void, too—one in the market for Zoom-ready fashion products, which focus on styling from the waist up.
"Even if you are someone that's only on Zoom calls three times a week, you still want to change the way you look, and with three boxes, it’s a really easy way to do it,” Nikoleta said.
Vicky Lirantonakis, who is a co-owner along with her sister and also works as a senior digital marketing programs manager at Pegasystems, modeled three Style Fílos’ accessories during our video call: a scarf-face mask combination, earrings and a headband. During the creation of Style Fílos, Vicky and Nikoleta prioritized taking their product to market quickly over developing perfection.
“Instead of striving for perfection, [the process] was just quick and dirty," Vicky said. "We've always sold headbands, always sold earrings and necklaces, so it was really just about refining the idea.”
“We don't wait until we’re 105% [ready]. We are ready to go when we feel confident in it," Nikoleta added. "And we don't sit on things, especially with something like this where we knew it needed to be out there quick because of the climate.”
This climate of Zoom call meetings and social distancing won’t last forever, but accessory boxes designed to elevate video call attire from the waist up is a fun, fashion-forward fix to a present need in the apparel market.
