Innovative Houston athleisure startup debuts in Talbots

ready-to-wear innovation

Houston-based Accel Lifestyle's innovative line of athleisure has made it into Talbots. Photo courtesy of Accel

After a year of planning and behind-the-scenes work, the highly anticipated collaboration between local apparel brand Accel Lifestyle and Talbots has finally come to fruition.

Shoppers can now find Accel Lifestyle apparel — beloved for its eco-friendly, sustainable, antibacterial fabrics sourced made in the USA — on Talbot's website.

This partnership marks the first-ever collaboration for the athleisure brand of Talbots, T by Talbots. By teaming up with Accel Lifestyle, Talbots expands its product offerings and also provides its loyal, forward-thinking, and ethically minded customers with a new clothing option that perfectly fits with their values.

At the helm of Accel Lifestyle is founder Megan Eddings, whose background in chemistry ignited the creation of the brand's groundbreaking Prema fabric after one too many run-ins with foul-smelling gym clothes. Her proprietary fabric boasts a revolutionary antibacterial technology, rendering Accel Lifestyle's apparel supremely comfortable, high-quality, and remarkably odor-resistant. With this cutting-edge fabric, Accel Lifestyle firmly establishes itself as a trailblazer in the industry, setting new standards for functionality and style.

As CultureMap reported in 2019, Eddings's innovative work was rewarded with a partnership with Inc. Magazine, Houston billionaire Tilman Fertitta, and others.

Amanda Cotler and Megan Eddings of Accel Lifestyle are celebrating a big win for their company. Photo courtesy

"We are beyond elated about the Accel x Talbots launch," Eddings tells CultureMap." Amanda Cotler, Accel's Director of Operations, and I have been working on this opportunity for a year, and it feels incredible for the collaboration to be live. Our passions are textiles with technology and an ethical made-in-the-USA supply chain. To have a multi-billion dollar company like Talbots care about the same things brings us so much joy."

In addition to their remarkable achievements in fashion, Accel Lifestyle champions the power of women in STEM through their team's leadership and this collaboration. By showcasing the applications of science and technology within the realm of fashion, Accel Lifestyle and Talbots are spotlighting the remarkable potential within these fields.

With the Accel Lifestyle x Talbots collaboration in full swing, customers can expect an extraordinary fusion of sustainable fashion and impeccable style. The Accel Lifestyle collaboration features an Anti-Odor Power Tank and an Anti-Odor Timeless Tee. Both are available in colors black and white.

------

This article originally ran on CultureMap.

From Your Site Articles
Houston-based Goodfair takes clothing that would otherwise end up in landfills and turns it into a "mystery shopping" thrift experience. Photo courtesy of Goodfair

Growing Houston thrift startup aims to impact the unsustainability of the fashion industry

do goodfair

A Houston-based online retailer for second-hand clothing is quickly growing, aiming to make "No New Things" the mantra of the fashion world.

As the popularity of "Fast Fashion," or cheap clothing produced rapidly by mass-market retailers, begins to decline, brands are refocusing on upcycled, recycled, and sustainable clothing — and Goodfair has bet its business plan on this movement.

"I realized that there was too much stuff out there," says Topper Luciani, founder and CEO of Goodfair, "and there is an environmental crisis being caused by the clothing industry. They're manufacturing so many items, they're using slave labor, they're pumping dyes and other chemicals into rivers. It's absolutely wild."

The fashion industry contributes 10 percent of the world's carbon emissions, is the second-largest user of the earth's water supply, and pollutes the oceans with microplastics according to a report from Business Insider in October 2019. Additionally, the outlet reports that 85 percent of all textiles go to the dump every year.

"Still, we have an enormous demand for these clothes that are being thrown away and that demand is just being filled by more cheap new clothes at malls and things like that, instead of reintroducing second-hand clothes," says Luciani. "I've been working really hard on creating a way to make a frictionless process for reintroducing those clothes."

Luciani, tells InnovationMap that he predicts the size of the recycled clothing industry will grow to $51 billion by 2023. Following in the footsteps of second-hand online retail giants such as thredUP and Poshmark, Luciani takes things to the next level by focusing on adding ease to the online shopping experience, telling InnovationMap that it should be as easy as clicking one button.

The idea of Goodfair was surprisingly not inspired by the apparel industry at all. Luciani tells InnovationMap that he was influenced by the founder of Uber, Garret Camp, and Camp's idea for a one-click car service.

"Their whole concept was to just hit a button and a taxi comes, says Luciani. "I wanted to look at a thrift store through that lens."

Goodfair, which launched in 2018, adds to the trend of second-hand clothing with the introduction of "mystery shopping," shipping all of their clothing in variety packs chosen according to a customer's size and taste. This eliminates the cost of photographing, measuring, lowering the price for both the customer and the company.

"I had this idea that not only would mystery shopping eliminate the paradox of choice, but everyone loves a surprise," he tells InnovationMap.

Luciani tells InnovationMap that he sees a trend among Gen Z, individuals born between 1995–2009, for buying second-hand, noting that about 90 percent of Goodfair customers are between the ages of 18 and 25. thredUP also reports that Gen Z and Millennials are driving the growth of used clothing retailers, noting that "18–37 year-olds are adopting second-hand clothing 2.5 times faster than other age groups" in the company's 2019 Resale Report.

"This was the generation that was forged in the Great Recession and they saw the ills of decadence," says Luciani. "They saw the ills of not having financial literacy. Ultimately, these woke kids are aware that branding is kind of a heist."

Goodfair taps into this market, leaning into social media platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat to promote the company. The company recently kicked off an Instagram series called "In the racks, in the rags" where followers can win a random item from their warehouse, located in Houston's East End.

Goodfair joins the growing roster of local companies focused on sustainable fashion. For example, Magpies & Peacocks, the nation's only nonprofit design house, opened a new store in the East End last year. Houston is home to a number of brick-and-mortar stores which line Westheimer Boulevard in the heart of the city, including Buffalo Exchange, Leopard Lounge, Pavement, and LO-FI.

Luciani, who moved to Houston from Brooklyn, New York, leads Goodfair with Emily Keeton, COO. Keeton joined the company in October 2019, leaving her previous leadership role at WeWork. The company announced in January 2020 that they will be adding a vice president of marketing to the team.

In the coming years, Luciani tells InnovationMap that he hopes to launch an app for the brand, and also expand into offering other goods.

"I have a vision of essentially creating a used Amazon," says Luciani, "Everything that gets donated to thrift stores can get donated in this mystery mechanic."

Luciani has a long history in the textile industry. In 2004 while in college, he launched a men's polo shirt brand, Sir Drake.

"When I reflected on the experience and as I educated myself about the clothing industry, this was right when fast fashion was taking off, I realized that if I launched another fashion brand that I would just be contributing to industrial pollution problem," he says.

He tells InnovationMap that he then started selling used neckties on eBay, launching his mission with sustainable fashion.

"We expect that a year from now we will be generating five times the sales we did in 2019 and become a multi-million dollar business," Luciani says.

Ad Placement 300x100
Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

Houston space org to launch experiments aboard first mission into polar orbit

all aboard

Houston's Translational Research Institute for Space Health, or TRISH, will send its latest experiments into space aboard the Fram2 mission, the first all-civilian human spaceflight mission to launch over the Earth’s polar regions.

Fram2, operated by SpaceX, is targeting to launch Monday, March 31, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The crew of four is expected to spend several days in polar orbit aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft in low Earth orbit. TRISH’s research projects are among 22 experiments that the crew will conduct onboard.

The crew's findings will add to TRISH's Enhancing eXploration Platforms and ANalog Definition, or EXPAND, program and will be used to help enhance human health and performance during spaceflight missions, including missions to the moon and Mars, according to a release from TRISH.

“The valuable space health data that will be captured during Fram2 will advance our understanding of how humans respond and adapt to the stressors of space,” Jimmy Wu, TRISH deputy director and chief engineer and assistant professor in Baylor’s Center for Space Medicine, said in the release. “Thanks to the continued interest in furthering space health by commercial space crews, each human health research project sent into orbit brings us closer to improving crew member well-being aboard future spaceflight missions.”

The six TRISH projects on Fram2 include:

  • Cognitive and Physiologic Responses in Commercial Space Crew on Short-Duration Missions, led by Dr. Mathias Basner at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. The crew will wear a Garmin smartwatch and a BioIntelliSense BioButton® medical grade device to track cognitive performance, including memory, spatial orientation, and attention before, during, and after the mission.
  • Otolith and Posture Evaluation II, led by Mark Shelhamer at Johns Hopkins University. The experiment will look at how astronauts’ eyes sense and respond to motion before and after spaceflight to better understand motion sickness in space.
  • REM and CAD Radiation Monitoring for Private Astronaut Spaceflight, led by Stuart George at NASA Johnson Space Center. This experiment will test space radiation exposure over the Earth’s north and south poles and how this impacts crew members.
  • Space Omics + BioBank, led by Richard Gibbs and Harsha Doddapaneni at Baylor College of Medicine. The experiment will use Baylor’s Human Genome Sequencing Center's Genomic Evaluation of Space Travel and Research program to gain insights from pre-flight and post-flight samples from astronauts.
  • Standardized research questionnaires, led by TRISH. The test asks a set of standardized research questionnaires for the crew to collect data on their sleep, personality, health history, team dynamics and immune-related symptoms.
  • Sensorimotor adaptation, led by TRISH. The project collects data before and after flight to understand sensorimotor abilities, change and recovery time to inform future missions to the moon.

TRISH, which is part of BCM’s Center for Space Medicine with partners Caltech and MIT, has launched experiments on numerous space missions to date, including Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket last November and Axiom Space's Ax-3 mission to the International Space Station last January.

Houston lab develops AI tool to improve neurodevelopmental diagnoses

developing news

One of the hardest parts of any medical condition is waiting for answers. Speeding up an accurate diagnosis can be a doctor’s greatest mercy to a family. A team at Baylor College of Medicine has created technology that may do exactly that.

Led by Dr. Ryan S. Dhindsa, assistant professor of pathology and immunology at Baylor and principal investigator at the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s Hospital, the scientists have developed an artificial intelligence-based approach that will help doctors to identify genes tied to neurodevelopmental disorders. Their research was recently published the American Journal of Human Genetics.

According to its website, Dhindsa Lab uses “human genomics, human stem cell models, and computational biology to advance precision medicine.” The diagnoses that stem from the new computational tool could include specific types of autism spectrum disorder, epilepsy and developmental delay, disorders that often don’t come with a genetic diagnosis.

“Although researchers have made major strides identifying different genes associated with neurodevelopmental disorders, many patients with these conditions still do not receive a genetic diagnosis, indicating that there are many more genes waiting to be discovered,” Dhindsa said in a news release.

Typically, scientists must sequence the genes of many people with a diagnosis, as well as people not affected by the disorder, to find new genes associated with a particular disease or disorder. That takes time, money, and a little bit of luck. AI minimizes the need for all three, explains Dhindsa: “We used AI to find patterns among genes already linked to neurodevelopmental diseases and predict additional genes that might also be involved in these disorders.”

The models, made using patterns expressed at the single-cell level, are augmented with north of 300 additional biological features, including data on how intolerant genes are to mutations, whether they interact with other known disease-associated genes, and their functional roles in different biological pathways.

Dhindsa says that these models have exceptionally high predictive value.

“Top-ranked genes were up to two-fold or six-fold, depending on the mode of inheritance, more enriched for high-confidence neurodevelopmental disorder risk genes compared to genic intolerance metrics alone,” he said in the release. “Additionally, some top-ranking genes were 45 to 500 times more likely to be supported by the literature than lower-ranking genes.”

That means that the models may actually validate genes that haven’t yet been proven to be involved in neurodevelopmental conditions. Gene discovery done with the help of AI could possibly become the new normal for families seeking answers beyond umbrella terms like “autism spectrum disorder.”

“We hope that our models will accelerate gene discovery and patient diagnoses, and future studies will assess this possibility,” Dhindsa added.

Texas robotics co. begins new search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370

International News

Malaysia’s government has given final approval for a Texas-based marine robotics company to renew the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean more than a decade ago.

Cabinet ministers agreed to terms and conditions for a “no-find, no-fee” contract with Texas-based Ocean Infinity to resume the seabed search operation at a new 5,800-square-mile site in the ocean, Transport Minister Anthony Loke said in a statement Wednesday. Ocean Infinity will be paid $70 million only if wreckage is discovered.

The Boeing 777 plane vanished from radar shortly after taking off on March 8, 2014, carrying 239 people, mostly Chinese nationals, on a flight from Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, to Beijing. Satellite data showed the plane turned from its flight path and headed south to the far-southern Indian Ocean, where it is believed to have crashed.

An expensive multinational search failed to turn up any clues to its location, although debris washed ashore on the east African coast and Indian Ocean islands. A private search in 2018 by Ocean Infinity also found nothing.

The final approval for a new search came three months after Malaysia gave the nod in principle to plans for a fresh search.

Ocean Infinity CEO Oliver Punkett earlier this year reportedly said the company had improved its technology since 2018. He has said the firm is working with many experts to analyze data and had narrowed the search area to the most likely site.

Loke said his ministry will ink a contract with Ocean Infinity soon but didn’t provide details on the terms. The firm has reportedly sent a search vessel to the site and indicated that January-April is the best period for the search.

“The government is committed to continuing the search operation and providing closure for the families of the passengers of flight MH370,” he said in a statement.

View All Listings