The Conscious Cut

Ep.14 Digitizing Your Wardrobe: Unlocking Conscious Consumption w/ Debbie Wu

• Hoiki Liu • Season 1 • Episode 14

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In this innovative episode of The Conscious Cut, host Hoiki Liu connects with Debbie Wu, the visionary founder of MyMika, a fashion-tech app that's revolutionizing how we interact with our wardrobes. Hailing from a family in retail manufacturing and inspired by her own love for secondhand treasures, Debbie shares her journey from New York back to Taiwan, where she pivoted from a resale platform idea to creating a digital closet that captures your existing clothes, suggests fresh outfits, and uncovers forgotten gems—helping you style smarter without the morning chaos or impulse buys.

Together, they dive into MyMika's AI-powered features, from auto-categorizing items and planning travel packs to future integrations for seamless resale, rental, and even recycling through data-rich sorting. Debbie opens up about democratizing personal styling, reducing overproduction by empowering better purchasing decisions, and harnessing tech for good—like turning least-worn pieces into new favorites or linking with sustainable brands for effortless wardrobe updates.

Tune in for inspiring stories on rediscovering the power of what you already own, and explore how simple digital tools can spark mindful habits, curb waste, and foster a more circular fashion future.

Thank you for listening!

Hoiki Liu:

Welcome to The Conscious Cut. I'm your host, Hoiki Liu. This podcast is all about rethinking sustainability across fashion, lifestyle, and everyday practices. Through conversations with entrepreneurs, policymakers, educators, and change makers in Hong Kong and beyond, we will explore real solutions from industry-wide policies to the small habits we can all adopt. Let's cut through the noise and create meaningful change together. Welcome back to the Conscious Cut. Today we have with us Debbie Wu all the way from Taiwan. Yes. Representing, well, not representing, you are the founder of My Mika. That's right. So you are representing my Mika.

Debbie Wu:

That's right. That's right. Thank you for having me.

Hoiki Liu:

But why don't we I let you tell our audience a little bit about what my Mika is?

Debbie Wu:

Okay, so hi everyone. I'm Debbie. My Mika is a digital closet slash personal pocket stylist just for you. So what it is is we are a technology fashion tech company that allows you to capture everything that you own on your d on your closet, in your physical closet, digitally onto your phone. Thereafter, we are a personal styling agent. You get to style your clothes on the go, determine what you want to wear tomorrow, next week, on vacation. And then, you know, very soon there are other features that we will be adding to it.

Hoiki Liu:

That's so great. So my understanding of it, it's almost like your own Pinterest board fit with what's in your closet.

Debbie Wu:

Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah. So the idea is that there's we have a lot of clothes in our closet, sometimes out of sight, out of view. Some people forget about it. If you can capture it all on your phone, you can, I guess, get a bird's eye view of what's in your closet and play with it on your own and hopefully get inspired and re-inspired by what you already have. That's our ultimate goal. I love that you said it's Pinterest because that's actually on our vision board. We would love for, you know, the people to just have fun and make different styles and realize that the, you know, the power of what they already have might actually take you further.

Hoiki Liu:

Yeah, because often it's not, I mean, even if you do know what you have in your closet, actually figuring out the styling you're gonna go with for a certain event or or the date, you know, whatever it is, it's it's tiring to have to actually pull out all the pieces, try it all on, put it together, see if they all match and goes well. And I, you know, and if it doesn't, then you swap something out. But that process, it's lengthy.

Debbie Wu:

And it's not for everyone. I love that you say that. Actually, some of our users have already said, and actually, for me, I mean, naturally, I'm the founder. Of course, I'll say that. It has saved me so much time in the morning trying on things and realizing that, oh, something looks better in my head than in reality. For us, it's just one more step further. You get to see the colors of, you know, the top and the bottom that you have imagined matching together, how everything, the whole ensemble goes together. Everything now is live and you get to see it on your phone. It's it saves you some time from trying on things and then taking it off and then going to a party and coming back, and your bed is full of clothes. You got light for the couch, you know? That was part of the inspiration. And so totally smot on.

Hoiki Liu:

Okay. Great. And I also imagine there would be things that maybe I wouldn't think about putting together, but is everything categorized and sorted once I put it up on the digital closet?

Debbie Wu:

Yes. So we use an AI technology that will automatically capture what you put on. So we can read the color, the material. It's not 100% accurate, especially if it's mixed material, we would probably know better. But we would try to capture the color, the material, sometimes even the brand. If you're wearing a shirt that has a huge Nike logo on it, it will definitely catch it. If it could see the tag on the back, it will definitely catch it. But if it's just a white t-shirt like what I'm wearing today, it's probably gonna guess it wrong. Okay. So it will automatically categorize everything for you. And then, you know, you can kind of filter and sort through however way you like, however way you plan.

Hoiki Liu:

Can it be categorized for like events too? Like, oh, I'm going to uh a formal wear event and then which what are my formal clothes that I have?

Debbie Wu:

Not yet, but that is something we're building in. So we're building seasonality, we're building a way for you to capture, you know, how you would like to wear the clothes. That's a little tricky though, um, because say this white t-shirt, right? It's obviously a casual shirt. It's a very thin cotton, but perhaps if you hit wear it a blazer, it could transform into something that is a little bit more upscale or more formal. So there are buckets that when we're considering putting together the different filters and the categories that we might let the user do it themselves and categorize it themselves. Is this something that is an all-season item that I want to wear? Is this something that I can that that applies for all different occasions? Right. There is a different lens though. People actually have liked to start start saving the outfits that they decreate on our app. So it's not just a closet catalog at this point. There might be favorite outfits that they've saved. And it's like, you know, yesterday we went we had an event together and you wore a beautiful outfit. Maybe it's one of your favorites now because you got so many compliments from it. You could save it in a bucket, you could categorize it and say, you know, maybe one day in the future I might want to repeat it, or I might want to repeat it, but add a different element, make it a little different. Right. The app can do that for you, can categorize it for you. And we are working on features that in the future it might actually, you know, bring that outfit to a new light for you. Maybe it might complete it and say, hey, you've, you know, have you thought about switching it with these shoes?

Hoiki Liu:

Right, right.

Debbie Wu:

Have you thought about adding these jewelry to it? It might make transform your look. What do you think? Something like that.

Hoiki Liu:

Oh, that's so fun. So it's like your personal stylus besides a digital closet.

Debbie Wu:

It is. Um, there is there is this ambition, there is this thought. I mean, personal stylus used to be reserved for the multi-billionaires, the millionaires of the world. Imagine, you know, people who are super wealthy. They wake up and there's their their butler or their their personal styles. Just say, hey, I know your clo I know your schedule for the day. The weather is like this. I have three outfits for you. What do you think? Pick it out. The ambition and the goal for my Mika is to democratize that. We could we could do that too. You have, you know, the My Mika will know everything that's in your closet. It will naturally know kind of what you l lend to, what your styles are. You wake up, it geotags knows where you are. If you allow it to sync to your calendar, it will know, okay, Hoikey, this is your schedule today. I've put together three outfits for you that might kind of blend in for all three events that you're going to, etc. etc. What do you think?

Hoiki Liu:

Oh, that's so great. That's so great. Because we were saying, even for your event yesterday, actually, I had an event just earlier on in the date that was semi-formal. And from a semi-formal event to coming to your event, what was I gonna wear? I actually wasn't sure. I really wasn't sure. Until you guys sent out that little note of uh, you know, like a trust suggestion dress code, and it's really just on colors because we were at Matchali, so it was like related to greens, yeah, a mix of greens, and that just helped me clarify. It was perfect.

Debbie Wu:

Yeah, your output was perfect. Thank you.

Hoiki Liu:

You didn't even have to think twice because you're already wearing green. It was going to it was gonna win. Easier because I only have so many green dresses in my closet. So when I knew it was um semi-formal, and the team was green for the next party, the two merged together seamlessly.

Debbie Wu:

Yeah. No, but that's kind of the point of the app too, you know, to for it to consider something that is in your closet that is semi-formal but also appropriate for an event that's a little bit more casual at Machali. Yeah, you know, so it's one of the things, it's one of the efficiencies we would love to give for our users. And also just a little peace of mind. Because there's sometimes people would panic by. Yes. You know, they would be like, Oh my god, I don't have something, then I really need to go. Your closet is much more powerful than you think. And that's that's the goal of my my Mika too. Hopefully it saves you a little money.

Hoiki Liu:

Yeah.

Debbie Wu:

Hopefully being in a you know, a little bit good for the environment so that you don't panic by and go buy something that maybe you only wear once and then you forget about it. For sure, for sure. Because that's that's just so wasteful.

Hoiki Liu:

Um, I want to know a little bit more of how it even started for you. Like why from uh you were when did you go back to Taiwan? I know you were uh in New York before previously.

Debbie Wu:

So, you know, what brought this idea forward? So I moved back to Taiwan in 2022. So it's been three years. I didn't start right away. I've always wanted to do something that's related to fashion. My family is in the retail manufacturing industry. It's very similar, actually, to where you're come from, where your roots are. So I grew up actually similar to an office that's yours. We had um machines around. My grandma was a head seamstress, she took care of me growing up, and so I was kind of always on the side playing and being yelled at because it's like needles and trunk. So I have a class bar for you know, offices like yours for seamstresses around. Yeah. Grew up knowing the value of clothing and how they were made. So there was this element of I want to be in fashion, I want to start something, but I don't want to, I don't really necessarily, I'm not good with sewing machines. Um, I don't really want to make clothes. I don't know what necessarily I want to do, but I do know the value of clothes and I love have always loved shopping secondhand or shopping in my mom's closet to be specific. Oh, that's so great. Yeah. So the I original idea of my Mika was for it to be a secondhand resale platform. The thing is, I always knew from day one I wanted a tech element to be in it. Because I always believed that technology has this power to um super speed, you know, whatever purpose that you want to do for good. Really. Um, so I was searching for that element and origin and we came up with the idea to kind of make it easier for people to list secondhand items with just a push of a button. Meaning if you can digitize what's what they already have, when they're ready to sell, all the specs are there. Um instead of you know either having the user or having in consumers themselves take pictures, spend on time to like upload it on a site or input all the data, it's already there. Or or even having the retailer or whatever secondhand retailer do it. It just takes time and money. So I thought maybe there's a technology and there's a way to do it. As we went down that line, that was when kind of the pivot and the the the light bulb moment happened. Because we were like, if we were doing digitizing people's closets um and waiting to service them on at the moment of sale, then we as a business would be hoping for more sales, who we would be would be who would be pushing people to want to buy or to sell or to do that. Why there's so much more potential to service it when they already are using it or having it. After all, the most sustainable item is in your closet already. Yes. Right? So that's the pivot. That was like, okay, we can do so much more with what people already have. Why don't we transform it into a technology that would help people see and do more with what they have? If we can save them some money, if we can save them some time, that would be a huge win for us. Yeah. I guess that's where my Mika came about.

Hoiki Liu:

That's so great. Because often when you start going through your closet to see what you don't want or what you want to move on from, donate or to resell, you sometimes find a lot of things that you forget that you're Yes.

Debbie Wu:

Yes. No, but you know, I love that you said that. Okay, another prologue. We have this filter that is a lease worn filter. Oh, okay, yeah. So you can tr uh filter your closet and see the the you know the items that you I guess for now there's no calendar element to track what you actually wear. It there's only an element of what you style, what you're actively styling in outfit boards. Yes. So we do it based on that. So the pieces in your digital closet that you never style or that you don't you don't re you don't reach out to digitally, we will list that out for you. Yes. And we are actually hopefully in the next month or so coming out with a tool that say, okay, these items you don't wear. What if we like we will pair it with, we will create an outfit for you using what you have.

Hoiki Liu:

Yes, yes.

Debbie Wu:

You know, maybe in the future there will be a partner element, like using more, you know, some your favorite brands that are yeah, if you really need something new, favorite brands that are sustainable and and what it will fit into your closet and maybe help you plan things that you don't normally reach to.

Hoiki Liu:

Yes.

Debbie Wu:

But yeah, the I the goal is if if we can bring new light to things that you don't touch and make it into something that you love again, that you'll wear again. Yeah, um, yeah, another way.

Hoiki Liu:

For the customer to recognize like what you never touch is either it really doesn't fit into your cell or your closet. So reconsider the next time you look at these kind of styles, or maybe even consider reselling the styles, which I'm sure your platform will eventually merge with some kind of store.

Debbie Wu:

I can see that we're going right. Yes, um I don't know if I'm prematurely saying this, but yeah, we actually this trip has been amazing coming to Hong Kong. Um, first of all, the community has been awesome. We've met with several small business owners and brands and and leaders in the industry already, including yourself. Yeah, but yeah, we are in talks with potentially working with um a secondhand platform, which brings it full circle because my Mika was intended to be that way. Yeah but you know, merging our tech in a way where perhaps, you know, HK users, Hong Kong users who are in my Mika, they already have their closet digitalized. Maybe there are some things that they, yeah, from the least worn uh filter, they realize actually, yeah, I really don't wear it and I there really does not add any value to my closet. We can sync them up to a secondhand resale platform that they could either sell or rent actually their closet items. So something that's not bringing any value to you might bring in some value to you from a rental perspective and bring in some more money for you that way. Yeah. Um, and save somebody from buying something new.

Hoiki Liu:

Yeah, that would be so great to see all of these new digital tools that can help us make our lives more efficient. Yes. So make our lives more efficient, reduce waste, honestly, because now you see what you have, you know what you can work with. Um, you know if you need to add an item, like you said, maybe it can give the suggestions from the rental or the second hand platform. Different items out there that might make your least one item work for you again. Exactly. Or if it really doesn't, then you can resell or rent your item instantly. So you have all those options and choices at your hand to make the best use of what you own.

Debbie Wu:

Yeah, it really is a 360-degree kind of experience, right? We are a digital closet, we plan for what you already have, but it doesn't stop there. Shop consumers are gonna shop. Fashion is lovely, that's why I love fashion. It brings so much inspiration. So we're not here to be like, don't shop, you you know, only your clothes. But when you do shop, we always consider like, hey, I love this new dress that I've it's on my wish list. Um, but does it pair with everything that I have? Can I wear it against other things? Um, all it's it's always when you're shopping, it's in your head. We're just bringing a tool that can actually merge that together. And I would think that brands and retailers would love that because then the whole shopping experience becomes even more rewarding. Or just um smarter. You know, your consumers might actually make better decisions and love the act the items that they purchase from you. There would be less returns, actually. You know, there would be less, oh, I bought this and I actually this color when it came, it doesn't match with anything that I own. Um, no, I don't want it. I return it. That costs the brands money. The sh the shipping to and from the the the waste amount of packaging waste that will come with it. And you know, maybe sometimes returns don't actually end up back on the shop floor. They always don't. So so there's there's that, you know, saves them some money too. And hopefully also saves um an element of overproduction. Yeah. Because there is a way for you to track and realize from a data perspective what your consumers are you know, what they actually your your consumers own. Yeah. So what do they actually need? What do do you think, you know, there's a predictive element to see like maybe what suits them better and what not. So that maybe when you're producing and determining what what numbers of SKUs you need to produce for your item, you might make a better informed decision to produce less to save you some money, save the insurance.

Hoiki Liu:

Yeah. I think that's that's very important. Like like I said, I'll we are for my brand personally, we're also moving towards here our code labels. We want to have the DDP, the EPR all in check before we release something out for retail. So, you know, it would be great if a customer who's buying something from my brand, my label, yeah, to be able to instantly auto-sync auto-sync it. So now that they the the AI, I guess, knows that this item belongs to them, they'll automatically put a picture into the digital closet without the consumer having to take the pictures.

Debbie Wu:

Yeah. No, I and actually before this podcast, I was seeing one of the shirts that you were producing with an NFC tag and gave me so many ideas. And I don't understand why more people do that. I understand the NFC tag for purpose is for a digital passport purpose. But the fact that you saved um producing the label, like all the the extra material that's needed just to produce the label, the care label, and you just put it on a QR code. Yeah, I I don't know why more people don't do that. Um it saves so much in terms of waste. But yeah, back to the whole digital syncing part. There is a way, since you're already doing it, for you know, brands to partner and say whatever their customers buy, it will auto-sync to their digital closet, and then the brand it actually itself will know what their customers own from them. And and the brand the customer themselves might actually have an expanded digital closet and know their entire bird's eye view.

Hoiki Liu:

I mean, I'm taking this really, really far now, but this just gave me a new idea is besides just reaching the customer and then the brand and the uh platforms along the way that they can resell or rent things to or get things from, when we're always talking about end product responsibility, that needs to basically stay in the country that the item is in. Yeah. Because you can't export waste. That's true. A lot of times you can't export waste. But now if we can build in eventually, that's probably a very further along, I don't know when picture, but eventually when the ecosystem's big enough for now for the customers to know when they don't want something anymore in your least worn category. Yes, you no longer want it, it's not good enough to be resold or to rent. Nobody wants it in the resell or rental market either. Like you've maybe you've already put it out there and it's been there for a period of time and you know it's not moving and it's not going anywhere. Or maybe it's a piece that you know yourself it's no longer in a condition where it's makes sense for someone to rent or to take it from you, then what do you do with that garment at the end of the day? That's always my question. Actually, like I always say from the get-go, the whole point of this podcast is to find out what happens to your garment at the end of the day when you no longer need it and it's not good for anybody. How do you recycle it? And you know, recycle if every if our guest looks back into our last episod episode, we've brought out a lot of recycling solutions, but we've talked about how it's not scalable at this moment, the difficulty. Is scale. It's not that we don't have the solutions, it's scale. Now, if the consumer now can see from your site what is least worn and they know it's not good enough for resale or rental, maybe there's a bin now they can throw it into. The recycling bin. And your AI in the back can collect this data from all your customers. Yeah. And maybe in different locations you can collect it and have it now sorted. Because you have the data, the color, the content, that's the most important part of the material.

Debbie Wu:

Yeah, for a recycling perspective, we also have the data for material. Exactly. And so you can sort it by that. And I know there are, you know, various complex ways of different materials recycle in a different way.

Hoiki Liu:

But the first thing the most difficult part is always about sorting. Exactly. Don't put the wrong things in the wrong bins. Exactly. So it'll be so good because now I can already see you have that data there, which is what is so difficult for us to always get.

Debbie Wu:

The data is on the shirts or on the tags, especially the ones that you already produce. The bins could be alt auto-scannable. Like they could scan and then start sorting things.

Hoiki Liu:

Like for the customer to put it in the bin, it could just be maybe it's still in their in their home, in the facility, but they'll put it in a recycling bin that eventually you know how much is there. And then there can be locally work with recycling systems that can they can send their the package to. And the person who's receiving the package now knows what's in there and how to sort it instantly.

Debbie Wu:

Exactly. Exactly. I mean it that would be the dream. That really would be the dream to fully make sure that the ecosystem all works together. Because this is a such a complex issue, and it takes not just one tech, multiple and techs and multiple communities to work together.

Hoiki Liu:

Yes, yes.

Debbie Wu:

But it's not impossible.

Hoiki Liu:

It's not impossible at all. And I love having these conversations where tech is involved because sometimes like tech and AI is the enemy, but it's really on how you use it.

Debbie Wu:

Like that's how I feel it too. Same. That's that's the same view. Like I I understand the the the terrible things and the scary things about AI and tech. Um, but yeah, it is it is how people use it, it is what you use it for. There is it, there is a there is no good and bad with yeah, it is really the execution, it's how you use it that that determines is good and bad. And there is so much good potential that we can use it for.

Hoiki Liu:

Yes. I'm I'm glad to bring this up. And thank you for bringing up my t-shirt. Now I'm gonna do a little plug for it. It's so good. No, yeah, I'm so glad you did again. No, so I actually have like five partners for this t-shirt. But what we're what we're doing here is you see it's a basic cotton t-shirt, but what we're really trying to do here is try out the different technologies. So that's why it didn't need to have everything as a first shot. We want to know for the label if I'm using now a QR code because I don't want any PE Stor labels, you know, how does that work for the consumer? There's an AR catch code to keep this element fun. So when you take pictures of Snapchat, yeah, the shirt will change, you know, like digital will renew itself every few few months. There's a new effect, maybe a new culture, like Chinese New Year, maybe horses running. So cool. I don't know, Valentine's Day, someone's shooting everyone to your heart. So cool. But like different things can happen in the digital side of this t-shirt. And finally, we have the yes, the NFC chip is in here for you to actually scan it with your phones to get the information you need, um, who the shirt belongs to, etc.

Debbie Wu:

You know where the shirt has gone. Yes.

Hoiki Liu:

It's we're looking at, I mean, I don't think everybody needs to have all these elements on their shirt, but if they start somewhere, yeah, the information can be stored somewhere where your consumer can just get it. Yeah. It can be updated.

Debbie Wu:

Yeah.

Hoiki Liu:

Yeah.

Debbie Wu:

So important.

Hoiki Liu:

I love that. I love that. It is so cool. And I'm excited because with this tech, that means I can instantly have my t-shirt on my makeup for anybody. Yeah, like anybody who's bought the shirt, they can now open their digital closet and pull it in instantly. And this can be an item that's already there without them having to set up, take a picture. Yeah. Yes.

Debbie Wu:

That's the idea. Jinx. No, but that's the idea. I understand the huge hurdle about setting up a digital closet. That it and it's it's gonna be there. It's overwhelming for the user to have to capture their closets one by one.

Hoiki Liu:

Especially when you're the customer who have so much, and you're actually the person who needs it because you've got like hundreds of clients and you don't remember what they are. But imagine taking pictures for hundreds of clients. I know, I know.

Debbie Wu:

And then so that's yeah, we spend a lot of time and we're still doing it, trying to improve our technology so that it makes it easier for you.

Hoiki Liu:

Right.

Debbie Wu:

So there's actually uh a couple ways now for you to set up your digital closet. There is a traditional way where you take pictures of every item and we remove background for you, we make it better, and we but we still auto-categorize everything, so you don't have to do that. There is the find a product image online where you copy, paste, and put it in. And we also kind of send it and to AI and auto-categorize it, read it for you. So it's really the taking pictures part. There is a third part that is more complex that we're really quite excited about. It and it's uh extraction technology. So if you and I, hockey, take a picture together, yeah, whatever the camera sees that's in the picture, if you send it to AI, we will pull your black jacket out for you. We will try to recreate that for you, whatever you can see. So think about a human eye, right? So you still maybe need it to be a full body or show the whole shirt properly. Right. Um, if it's like a half body, then we will use the human eye to imagine that the other half is symmetrical and looks the same. But we have that technology to do that for you right now as well. So there's three ways to do it. Hopefully, there will be more, um, including the NFC way, including working with brands, potentially syncing it up with whatever they buy and auto-adding it to their digital closet. But we understand that that is the biggest hurdle to start your digital closet, and that is the biggest element that we as a team focus on right now to make it easier for our users.

Hoiki Liu:

Right. Um, I know we we were saying, like we actually were on the same line, we jinxed each other. Um true Asian city girls. So so so seriously. So with that, I want to understand where is my make my Mika right now? Where can I, in which location can I use your service?

Debbie Wu:

You can anywhere, anywhere in the world, you can use it. I mean, we are we are a web app, first of all. We are not in an iOS or an Android app yet. So you just go to my MikaCloset.com and you can start your closet really anywhere in the world. Our primary markets though, we just actually started in March. We hadn't been marketing it at all, but for some reason, um, over the summer of this year, we got some small traction coming and they're primarily from Hong Kong. Yeah. Hong Kong is our biggest market right now, as about 50% of our users are in Hong Kong, which is so impressive. Thank you, Hong Kong. Um, but the other, the second one is Singapore. 30% of our users are from Singapore, and then the rest are broader spread across Southeast Asia. So while we are based in Taiwan, um, we hope we get more Taiwanese users for sure. We would love for, you know, kind of just broader more users everywhere. We are Hong Kong, Singapore, uh, Malaysia, Indonesia. Those are our primary markets right now, or people discovering us, whether it be through word of mouth, some kind of natural traction happening. Um, and just just using us. Um, yeah, we have we have a big chunk of our Hong Kong users are our what we call power users, meaning they have over 150 items in their closet already. Yes. So either they they make they did the work of taking pictures of 150 items or they found their product shots online. Or I actually what I've really heard is the easiest way is they just submit outfit of the day photos of themselves or with their friends, and we capture it's it's four or five items at a time then.

Hoiki Liu:

So many people that guess outfit of the day sorry.

Debbie Wu:

Yeah.

Hoiki Liu:

For outfit of the day photos right now, I don't want to say everyone's doing that, but so many people are doing them. So it's already uh something that you do, it's already on your Instagram. Yeah, putting it on makes it so much easier.

Debbie Wu:

Yeah, so it's not only auto putting and creating the closet items that you know, so you don't have to individually do that. We also will capture your entire outfit. Yeah. So we will put it in an outfit board and it's kind of saved somewhere and hopefully we From like your jewelry to your shoes. Yeah, it does jewelry too. Wow. So that that's the thing though. Some I I I'm so proud of the the technology to do that, but it's always it's not it's not a hundred percent. Yeah. I do have to caveat that. Especially jewelry. Sometimes the fine jewelry is very thin, the technology can't see it that well, or the jewelry is also very personal. There's a lot of intricate details that perhaps the AI is not there yet to see. Maybe it'll get there.

Hoiki Liu:

But I think for the consumer, if it's their items, like just having the idea is yeah, it's good enough, I want to say, right? Like not everything's got to be picture perfect, but you should have that image in your head.

Debbie Wu:

Yeah, yeah. It it still ultimately produces the effect and helps you when you're planning because you it is your item after all, you know. So you really just need, I guess, a board to see how things match and to to put it together like the Pinterest board. Um, it doesn't necessarily have to be exact. This is what I found from my user. When we were testing their product, we were so nervous, we were like, no, it needs to be a hundred percent. But it turns out actually 90% there, which is where it is right now, is good enough for the the user, yeah, for our users.

Hoiki Liu:

I think and it makes so much sense that Hong Kong would be one of the places where this is taking off because we have such lack of space. But I want to say we're probably one of the biggest shoppers in the whole world. Like everyone's always buying something, it's just in our daily habit. There's so much shops, and you can't help to like pick up something. I feel like that's like you have to be very mindful about not shopping while you're in Hong Kong. So with that said, like I know one of the one of the things that we have in our culture is the amount of mini warehouses around the city, and people would um store stuff in mini storages.

Debbie Wu:

That's actually something I learned from this trip. I have no idea. It it only makes sense. I I mean I did live in New York for a while, so I understand the fact that there's a small space and the problems there, but yeah, I didn't I didn't, I guess to think about this, you know, storage facilities.

Hoiki Liu:

Because like and when I was living in Canada, an apartment in Canada, most apartments also had a mini storage in the garage level, like where the car park is, and it's just like uh a cage where you put your things that you would never reach out again.

Debbie Wu:

Never, never. We were just talking about that. I moved back from Taiwan to Taiwan three years ago. I still have boxes in my garage. Exactly. I don't even know if I'll ever go there anymore.

Hoiki Liu:

For me, things that go into storage like that is probably something that it's gonna be in my lease worn. Yeah. I can't properly resell or rent it out or get rid of it somehow. But I mean, that's my case. That's not everybody's case. A lot of people do go to their mini storage to store maybe their their their event dresses.

Debbie Wu:

Yeah.

Hoiki Liu:

Or their winter cults and stuff like that. But it's easy for you to forget unless you're very good at catal have a system to catalog, which this is the system you need to get if you are using mini storages.

Debbie Wu:

Exactly, exactly. Hopefully it helps you remember, or you know, when you're searching for the event outfit or winter outfit, you can put a little pull it up and be like, wait a second, I do have that.

Hoiki Liu:

I do have something out to to fast fashion to buy an item, like you said, for because I don't have that pristine white shirt, but actually you do if you just do not in your sight. That's so awesome. Okay, I want to also ask now Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan are your focus. But like you said, it can be worldwide, right?

Debbie Wu:

Yeah, it could be worldwide, broader Asia. Broader Asia is my focus.

Hoiki Liu:

Okay, it's your focus. And I guess what besides right now, we know we have the digital closets happening. It's it's great for Hong Kong, like I said, because I imagine for girls who are very like tight on time, like we don't want to have that mess on our bed or on our floor with the pile of clothes. And this is something that I may be able to do when I'm on commute. Yeah. I'll be on the subway and literally what I do. I plan my outfit. I mean, I'm not the type that plan my daily outfits, but event outfits for sure. Right. So yeah, it's so much easier to just do that ahead of time when you have that pocket of transport time or something.

Debbie Wu:

For sure. Yeah. For sure. And travel, actually, that is an element that we're going to have built introduce soon because there are so many efficiencies that you can do. You can plan your outfits ahead of time. If you're sure on suitcase type sh suitcase space, you we could show you this shirt can transform into multiple outfits for whatever occasion you need for that travel. Um and then we give you a list of you know packing items right away. So that I mean that's literally now what I what I do when I travel. I pull out my Mika, I plan my daily outfits, um, and then there's that element that I'm pushing to, you know, kind of introduce very soon. But hopefully we will condense it into a list for you. And so then now you pack it's a very easy on your packing list.

Hoiki Liu:

Exactly. And I'm I'm like smirking and smiling because what's happened to me before when you have like you know how people say like AI hallucinations, like they make up stuff. Well, you know, have you ever heard of like travel hallucinations? No, like when you're packing. So we my husband and I, we had uh this was over a decade ago, but we had a friend who was getting married in Denang over Christmas. Okay, and the entire wedding party, you know, it was all like people in their 20s at the time were like, oh, we're going to Vietnam for our wedding. Awesome tropical country, you know. We all looked at the weather report and in the group chats, there's multiple of us that says, Oh, the weather says it's gonna be 17 to 22 degrees in Dana.

Debbie Wu:

No way, it's Vietnam. Yes, is that what you guys thought?

Hoiki Liu:

Yes, so the whole wedding party is like, guys, be stupid. You know, we're going to a tropical country. Exactly. 17 and 22, there still feels like summer. Yeah. This is the tropical news station. This is like, I think we all went for around like three to five days. Um, for the entire wedding party, wedding trip. The majority of us wore exactly what we wore leaving Hong Kong onto the airplane. Oh no, until everything that we packed just kind of stayed in the suitcase and the rooms, like the sun dresses, you know, the little cover ups over your bikinis. Like none of that came out. For the wedding after party. Like they did a little ceremony in a day on a beach and everything got switched back indoors. And then the after party was at the bar at the resort, which is open air. Oh my god. We were all in our nice cocktail dresses and all, but then once we got to the bar, everybody went back to their rooms and we all showed up back in mass modes.

Debbie Wu:

Everyone in beautiful roads, that's so funny. Okay, well, if you're hallucinating, then despite looking at the weather, I'm not really sure if you'll listen to my Mika say, please bring a coat along.

Hoiki Liu:

If we're not relying on the Mika to do my packing sorting, it will help me bring me back to reality. Maybe okay.

Debbie Wu:

I hope I hope that is the case.

Hoiki Liu:

I hope that is the case. No, but it's so great and it's so exciting to see where my Mika is now and where it's planning to go. And I have big dreams for the recycling part.

Debbie Wu:

Oh, when it comes on. When we get there, when the heck comes there, I will be coming back. Yeah?

Hoiki Liu:

Yes, sir.

Debbie Wu:

Let's collaborate then.

Hoiki Liu:

Yeah. And I mean, we're in some of my other episodes, we're also talking about AI sizing. You were talking to me about AI try-ons, and I can't wait to see that.

Debbie Wu:

I cannot wait. I cannot wait to work with them. I cannot wait to see that technology come to life.

Hoiki Liu:

So I know we're gonna have you back soon because ever-evolving digital closet. I'm excited to see the next phases also. So am I. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming in today to explain to us where you are at right now and where your plans are. Of course. Thank you, hooky.

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Hoiki Liu

Host
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Debbie Wu

Guest