The highlight of the entire LuckyFABB event for me personally was the Founders’ Series with Jess Lee, the CEO and co-founder of Polyvore. Now, I’m sure most of you are familiar with Polyvore but for those that aren’t- Polyvore began as a fashion-focused website used for creating collages, or sets, which are essentially virtual outfits. It has now become a major shopping tool, in addition to a one-stop interactive experience for all things fashion, art, beauty, and more recently, home decor. But Polyvore is even more than just that… it’s a positive social community! The company culture at Polyvore is a fun, creative, and supportive work environment and this definitely trickles down to the website community. I have interactions with users all over the world on a daily basis and everyone is so kind and supportive!

At LuckyFABB, Jess told her story of tenacity and passion. While working at Google, Jess heard about a mutual friend that started Polyvore with two other guys. She became an early user and quickly fell in love with the website! After sending suggestion after suggestion and exhibiting a huge amount of passion for the product, they invited her on-board as a co-founder and she worked her way up to CEO of the company. The most inspiring aspect of Jess’ story is that she took a leap of faith and followed what she was passionate about. She was persistent and it paid off!

Polyvore has played a pivotal role in my life, too! I’ve been an active member of the Polyvore community for over four years and actually discovered it by mistake. I was bored so I typed a few words into a Google search and there it was- Polyvore! From that moment on, I became totally enthralled with the website! I quickly went from creating collages to winning contests. With practice, I began to really learn what my unique style is. It emphasized that fashion is my path in life! After years of wanting to start my own fashion blog, I finally was confident enough to launch it this January with the help of Polyvore!

Not only did Polyvore help me in finding my personal style and confidence, but it physically is a huge part of my fashion blog. The majority of my visuals are created by myself using the Polyvore mini-editor and then I upload it to my blog, where I write commentary and how-to-style-guides on each highlighted trend or style. I can even upload multiple photos in a flip-book style, similar to what can be found on a popular fashion magazine’s website like Lucky Magazine! This gives my blog a clean, professional look.

A special thanks to Jess Lee for taking the time to meet me in person at LuckyFABB, answer my questions, and favorite my tweets! And an even bigger thank you for your tenacity during the early days of Polyvore- without you, I wouldn’t be where I am!

Eva Chen, Lucky Magazine’s Editor-In-Chief, interviews 

Jess Lee, CEO and Co-Founder of Polyvore, at LuckyFABB