How We Built Garde-Robe: A Social Fashion Platform Using Bubble's NoCode Technology

Published on January 22, 2024
By Marianella Saavedra Terkes · 6 minute read

When Garde-Robe presented their innovative vision to make fashion more social and collaborative, Kreante, a leading NoCode and LowCode agency, eagerly embraced the challenge. We successfully brought their concept to life using Bubble’s NoCode platform, focusing on crafting an app where friends can share their style, organize wardrobes, and engage in meaningful interactions around fashion. By leveraging NoCode, Kreante ensured the app was accessible across all devices, allowing users to explore, interact, and perform functions without needing to download additional software. This strategic approach not only enhances the social fashion experience but also provides a seamless service that caters to fashion enthusiasts and developers, proving Kreante's expertise in the NoCode and LowCode domain.

The Vision

Garde-Robe’s mission is to revolutionize how people interact with fashion online by leveraging a NoCode app. Instead of creating another e-commerce platform, the objective was to build a social space where users can share their style preferences, organize wardrobe items, create wishlists, and even arrange to borrow clothes. This app empowers users to share and borrow fashion pieces, facilitating user interactions and delegating responsibilities. The initial version of this app moved away from sponsored content and paid influencers, instead focusing on genuine user interactions. This approach encourages users to discover new fashion trends, explore personal styles, and connect with others, providing a service that enhances the social fashion experience. With NoCode development, the platform is accessible, allowing users to engage without needing to download additional software, making it a truly dynamic and interactive experience for all devices.

Development Process

Our journey began with a comprehensive set of designs from the client. Our developers' challenge was to accurately translate these designs into an app using Bubble’s framework while ensuring the platform would be both visually appealing and functionally robust. Working closely with our designer, we carefully implemented each component to maintain the client’s vision while optimizing for Bubble’s capabilities.

Core Features Implementation for the App

Social Connection and Interaction

At the heart of Garde-Robe is its social functionality. Users can ask and answer questions about fashion items, fostering engagement and support within the community. We developed a robust friend system where users can connect with their real-world friends, share their fashion discoveries, and interact through a dynamic messaging system. The platform encourages authentic connections and real interactions around fashion.

Wishlists and Collections

We developed both personal and group wishlist capabilities, allowing users to curate collections of fashion items they adore. The group wishlist feature was particularly intriguing to create, as it demanded careful consideration of collaborative permissions and real-time updates to ensure all members could contribute effectively. This feature acts as a building block for community engagement, allowing users to tap into shared fashion interests.

Users can begin using the app, providing a seamless transition as their needs grow, all while focusing on user satisfaction and enhancing their experience. This No Code approach ensures accessibility for a wide range of users, from fashion enthusiasts to developers exploring new app ideas. Users can access the app's functionalities at no cost, encouraging them to dive deeper into the social fashion experience without any financial commitment.

Wardrobe Management

The wardrobe feature we built allows users to catalog their clothing items and make them visible to friends. This wasn't just about showing off purchases – it included functionality for friends to request to borrow items.

Polling System

We created an engaging polling system with up to three types of polls, allowing users to seek friends' opinions about fashion items. Whether deciding between two purchases, choosing from multiple options, or seeking feedback on a single item, users can create polls and get feedback from their trusted network. This required implementing intuitive voting capabilities and creating an easy-to-use interface for both creating and responding to polls.

Technical Integration

A key aspect of our development work involved integrating a product scraping system into the web application. We implemented the necessary connections in Bubble to receive and display product data, ensuring users could easily save items to their wishlists and wardrobes. Our implementation allows users to view product details and seamlessly navigate to the original retailer's website when they want to make a purchase.

Data Structure and Workflows

Using Bubble’s powerful database capabilities, we created a complex but efficient structure to handle:

• User profiles and friend connections

• Personal and group wishlists

• Wardrobe items

• Messaging between users

• Polling and responses

• Product data from the scraping integration

• Efficient search functionality for navigating and accessing information

User Experience and Design

The user experience (UX) is a critical aspect of any app, as it directly impacts how users interact with and perceive the app. A well-designed UX can lead to increased user engagement, retention, and overall satisfaction. When building an app, it’s essential to consider the user’s needs, goals, and behaviors to create an intuitive and user-friendly interface.

NoCode app builders like Bubble provide a range of design tools and templates to help users create visually appealing and functional apps without requiring extensive coding knowledge. By leveraging these tools, users can focus on creating a seamless UX that meets their users’ needs and expectations. This approach not only saves time and resources but also ensures that the app is accessible and enjoyable for a wide range of users.

In the case of Garde-Robe, our team utilized Bubble’s design capabilities to craft an interface that is both aesthetically pleasing and easy to navigate. We paid close attention to the flow of interactions, ensuring that users could effortlessly connect with friends, manage their wardrobes, and participate in polls. The result is a platform that feels intuitive and engaging, encouraging users to spend more time exploring and interacting with the app.

Fashion Industry Trends and Insights

The fashion industry is constantly evolving, with new trends and technologies emerging every season. Staying ahead of the curve requires fashion brands and retailers to be aware of the latest trends and insights that shape the industry. From sustainable fashion to social media marketing, various factors influence consumer behavior and purchasing decisions.

To support Garde-Robe in staying attuned to the trends their users are posting, we developed a basic admin interface that allows our clients to monitor user interactions and preferences in real-time within the app. This tool empowers them to quickly respond to user-generated trends and make informed decisions, ensuring their platform remains engaging and relevant to its community.

Additionally, Garde-Robe has been actively relaunching updates and new versions, evolving into the dynamic app it is today. It has been a thrilling journey for us to assist them in kickstarting their product and witnessing their growth. By leveraging data and analytics, fashion brands can gain valuable insights into their customers’ preferences and behaviors, enabling them to create targeted marketing campaigns and improve their overall customer experience.

Using Bubble’s NoCode platform, we were thrilled to swiftly bring Garde-Robe’s idea to life and launch it live, allowing them to gather invaluable feedback from their users. This immediate access to real user insights enabled the team to continuously adapt and enhance the app, ensuring it evolves in line with user needs and preferences. The ability to launch quickly and iterate based on user feedback is crucial in the dynamic world of fashion, where staying attuned to user demands can drive the app's success.

The Social Experience for Users

The web platform we built emphasizes genuine social interaction around fashion. Users can:

• Share their style preferences and discoveries with friends

• Create and collaborate on group wishlists

• Request to borrow items from friends’ wardrobes

• Get honest opinions through polls

• Message friends

• Discover new products through friends’ collections

• Benefit from a service that enhances social connections around fashion

Results

The completed app successfully captures Garde-Robe’s vision of making fashion more social and collaborative. By leveraging the power of NoCode, we swiftly created a platform that allows friends to share their style, organize fashion wishes and belongings, and interact meaningfully around clothing and accessories. This app is accessible to everyone, providing a seamless user experience. The rapid development and launch process enabled by NoCode technology allowed for quick adjustments based on user feedback, ensuring the platform evolves in line with user needs and preferences.

Looking Forward

The Bubble app we've developed for Garde-Robe lays a robust groundwork for future expansion. Now available for download from the app store, the app's modular design allows for easy integration of new features as the platform grows. Whether it's enhancing social functionalities, improving the borrowing system, or introducing new interactive elements for fashion enthusiasts, the platform's potential for future development is vast.

This project highlights how NoCode development with Bubble can produce sophisticated, user-friendly applications that revolutionize user interaction in the fashion industry. Garde-Robe exemplifies the power of merging innovative social ideas with the right technical strategy, creating a platform that fosters more connected, authentic, and collaborative fashion experiences.

Ready to bring your digital project to life? Book a free consultation with Kreante today and launch your idea swiftly!