Ombre's a fashion-tech startup (yes, that's a thing!) that's on a mission to redefine the way we shop for clothes, and bring style to just about everyone, of all body shapes, skin tones and sizes. Our virtual fashion stylist gives shoppers style ratings, advice and suggestions to complete their outfit with every product they browse on our partner retailers' stores.

The idea behind our virtual stylist birthed when our Founder was working part-time as a retail assistant at Topman. Customers often sought his advice on which clothes suit them better.

So he realised that the answer to that is not as simple as it seems. There were multiple layers of factors that needed to be taken into account. For example, the style of a shirt must suit your body shape (one factor). But the colour of the shirt must suit your skin tone (another factor). If a customer asked which shirt is suitable with his skin colour, any answer that is given would not be complete. For instance, a shirt that suits him based on his skin tone, might not suit him because of his body shape. In essence, our Founder was aware that he needed to make all the factors interconnected to give even a decent suggestion.

That said, every time a customer asked, “does this look good on me”, the same process of looking at the multiple factors must be repeated for a styling advice to be at least reliable. That is when the following saying hit Imran: “If you do it once, great. If you do it twice, frown. If you do it three times, automate it.”.