via SSENSE
Ssense Acquires Polyvore. Now What? An end to fashion mood boarding we have come to love and enjoy. Polyvore has been a remedy for some, a place to go to get inspired, and it shut down without notice.
11 years ago, Polyvore came to save us all from the conventional mood boarding concept we are all too familiar with. With Polyvore gaining trusted followers and people along the way, it’s safe to say that the site is one of the easiest to love and access. With all the hassle there is to cut and paste, Polyvore eases everyone with the idea of browsing through millions of websites – finding the right clothing pieces and accessories, makeup, artworks, furniture, you name it – to create their mood and artistic scenarios in the form of digital collages. It was a fun way to fantasize but at the same time build an online portfolio around your industries, be it make-up and fashion. It was a wonderful crowd-sourcing website that was well loved and accepted by many.
Just last Thursday, April 5, 2018, the website had abruptly announced on their social media sites that they will discontinue operations, where users typing in Polyvore.com will be effectively directed to fashion platform, ssense.com. Website mogul for various millennial and up and coming labels and brands, SSENSE has acquired Polyvore where the website will remain as a luxury online shop.
The news broke out with no prior announcement, creating a major shockwave among the millions of teenagers and professionals who have followed Polyvore since day one. The company may have shuttered more than just the Instagram mood-boarders and the professionals but Polyvore did cut out a significant part of satisfying our dreams and creations in a digital canvas. Polyvore was a website as a means of channeling creativity that has easy access to all the fashion items, make-up and artworks there are on the Internet.
Now that Polyvore has finally admitted its demise and cease to exist, communities are only left with the disappointment of not being able to retreat their professional work and also, find sites that are of the likes to Polyvore. Although Polyvore may have taken a bold move of putting a one-time announcement and immediately shutting the website without prior notice, it would have been best to reconsider all the communities, individuals, assets and networks that the site has gained over the years. This idea is to avoid the unwanted bad press and scathing reputation. And also, this would become a challenge for Ssense to continually gain reputation and loyalty from Polyvore’s existing consumers, knowing that the roles of the former is contrasting and way different than the latter.
We are not too sure if Ssense is planning to bring back that crowd-sourcing excitement used in Polyvore. But to have that exciting digital mood-boarding era is a saddening fact. Unless one-day Ssense will finally contemplate and think through of winning back Polyvore’s users by applying its programs and tools.
Polyvore’s user response:
Ssense’s response:
via @ssense twitter