Renowned fashion buyer Gab Waller is gearing up for the launch of her technology platform Sourced By this March. Waller is betting on the predictive ability of generative AI and image recognition to speed up the process of sourcing hard-to-find fashion items for stylists and personal shoppers.
Waller started out as a fashion sourcer in 2018, primarily using Instagram direct messages to answer queries. Over time, she has carved a niche for herself to find exclusive items, notoriously difficult for most people to access—including the Margaux bag by The Row, dubbed the new Birkin by Vogue. Waller’s work has gained prominence among high-profile names like Hailey Bieber and Khloé Kardashian, who are listed as clients on her website.
On the sidelines of CES, Waller sat down with Retail Brew to talk about the launch of Sourced By in Q1. In a follow-up email, a few weeks later, Waller added that Sourced By is launching to its first set of beta users in March.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
What’s the latest on Sourced By?
Sourced By is an AI automated all-in-one platform that streamlines every aspect of the fashion sourcing process. Essentially, we are launching in Q1 so that’s the plan. We’re onboarding my team—Gab Waller—as like the first user to generate as much user feedback as possible.
Can you walk us through the Q1 launch?
At present, we have a waitlist currently in motion and it’s growing…We’re building it for fashion professionals, in a way that it’s for sourcers, personal shoppers, and stylists to use as that all-in-one system. The waitlist that we’re generating is predominantly from those users. Any individual that’s a shopper, a stylist, or a sourcer.
We are planning to release the waitlist slowly…We’re even thinking of releasing it to 10 sourcers to begin with, then 20 and hopefully more, rather than just like opening the floodgates. We want to really ease into it, so we can get as much feedback to really build it for them.
What is your personal hope for 2025 when it comes to tech, luxury, and fashion?
Speaking specifically for my industry, it’s all about finding more. The issue at hand at present [is] we can only find about 30% of our requests. But I truly believe that every item that I receive a request for exists somewhere in the world. So, creating that technology to find more pieces to service more clients—that’s what gets me really excited. At present, we’re not fulfilling 100% of our requests. I know that we can, but we need the technology to do so.
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Talk to me about the use of AI at Sourced By.
I think for the AI, what really excites me is just how much it will streamline the current workflow. For Sourced By, we’re really using and implementing it to essentially eliminate a lot of the current manual work that's happening. And we’re seeing that from simply, for example, logging our request into Sourced By. We do all that manually. [It] takes around two to three hours a day to manually enter in those requests. And AI is doing that automatically in seconds.
Is it AI, or is it gen AI?
It’s gen AI. It’s using image recognition—that’s the key. So essentially, what it’s doing is we screenshot the request from the client where it says, “Hey, Gab, can you find me this in a 40?” and it will recognize the item, note that the client’s request is for size 40, and also note the client’s name. It’s using image and text recognition in what it is utilizing.
What’s your personal fashion style statement?
I would say that fashion to me is all about feeling good and feeling confident in what you’re wearing. For me, I know firsthand how fashion has the power to change how I feel from the moment I wake up and I put on my outfit for the day, I feel different. And not a lot of things in my life make me feel that way, and have the power that fashion holds. I think it’s why I’m in the industry and why I’m so passionate about the industry. It changes the way you walk and talk and carry yourself. And I think that’s a really powerful thing.
What’s been the biggest challenge you’ve encountered so far?
The biggest challenge [was] perhaps finding a partner from the technical side, and wanting to ensure I found the right person…We did hire [an engineer from] StockX. To have someone on that level really leading the technical side has been a big weight off my shoulders, because I don’t have that technical background.