Stories

August 13, 2023

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Luxury fashion gets a new face with Luxe Du Jour, a brand driven by innovation and purpose. Tammy Phan, the visionary behind the brand, embarked on this journey to bridge a gap in the market for selling high-end designer handbags. Her pursuit of accessible luxury has reshaped the industry.

Beyond fashion, Luxe Du Jour has redefined the concept of luxury itself. Through Luxe Bag Rental, they’ve unlocked a unique way to experience elegance without the hefty price tag. With a commitment to Recycle, Reuse, and Restore, they’re championing sustainability. Each pre-owned item holds a story of responsible consumption.

Luxe Du Jour’s journey has been marked by challenges, but their ethos remains unwavering. With education and community at the core, they’re leading the charge toward a future where luxury is synonymous with accessibility, ethics, and sustainability.

Join us as we delve deeper into their story.

HOW IT WAS FOUNDED

Luxe Du Jour all started with solving a problem for the founder, Tammy Phan, where she struggled to find a trustworthy place to sell high-end designer handbags. Back then, it was only eBay or your local clothing consignment shop. But eBay was a nightmare of dealing with lowballers, scam payments, and tie wasters and the local clothing consignment shops took 50-60% in commission.

Phan knew there had to be a better way so she started to sell her items on Instagram when the platform was peaking which was the start of the company. Luxe Du Jour ended up building a community on social media and the rest is history!

ABOUT THE FOUNDER

Phan grew up poor to immigrant parents. The typical expectations of her being a doctor or engineer were the only means of success in her parents’ eyes. However, life did not pan out that way for Phan, and she had to drop out of high school to get a job to help support herself, because she thought by doing this—it would be one less child for her parents to worry about financially. 

Phan’s strong desire for luxury stemmed from not growing up around it, and she made it her goal to one day be able to afford a designer handbag. She worked hard, saved enough money and did just that.

Discovering her one Chanel bag increased in value over time and being able to profit on it after she sold it years down the road sparked a joy that she knew she wanted others to experience. Thus beginning an interest in the value of the luxury designer resale market!

Her mission is to make designer luxury more affordable, accessible, and sustainable.

LUXE BAG RENTAL

Shopping for pre owned designer luxury has not changed in the last decade and the prices of designer luxury constantly keep increasing but the shopping experience in store hasn’t changed or evolved to make the price hikes worth it. 

Why are we able to test drive cars before committing thousands of dollars to it and not be able to do that with expensive designer handbags that also cost thousands of dollars even $10,000+?

Luxe Bag Rental saw a huge hole in the market that women wanted to constantly switch up their styles more often, try it before they buy it, or just wear an item once for a special event or photoshoot without the hassle of trying to sell it after. Luxe Bag Rental clients now get to experience a completely new way of shopping and trying out designer fashion. If they love the bag, they can opt for rent-to-own. It gives consumers a chance to really experience the items first-hand providing a smarter and more approachable way to shop. 

REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE

Everything done at Luxe Du Jour integrates the 3 R’s.

When you shop or sell preowned, you are RECYCLING that designer handbag. When you rent with Luxe Bag Rental you are REUSING that designer handbag and when you restore a bag back to life with Luxe Bag Spa you are REDUCING waste because a bag you were not going to wear anymore due to its damage now has a second chance at being worn and loved again!

It takes up approximately 629 kg of CO2 to produce one leather handbag so we are reducing a lot of carbon emissions every time a designer handbag is sold, rented, or restored! The fashion industry is so wrapped up in having everything brand new, Luxe Du Jour wants to focus on how to normalize pre-owned and continue to find ways to push for positive environmental impact. 

AUTHENTICITY AND SUSTAINABILITY

Authenticity is the core of Luxe Du Jour’s business. A 3-step authentication process is done to ensure authenticity for every item sold or rented out hence why Luxe Du Jour offers a lifetime guarantee or you get your money back.

A rise of counterfeits and fast fashion has flooded the market and Luxe Du Jour focuses on educating our community on the negative impacts of buying counterfeit and fast fashion by building a community and nurturing that community to  fulfill their needs.

LOOKING FORWARD

We aspire for Luxe Du Jour to be a huge disrupter in designer luxury fashion and want to lead the path so that the luxury giants follow and want to be a part of the positive impact we are making for those who love authentic designer luxury.

Luxe Du Jour will continue to be innovative and bring a new look to preowned.

CONNECT WITH LUXE DU JOUR

Website: luxedujour.ca

Instagram: @luxedujour

Tiktok: @shopluxedujour

Facebook: Luxe Du Jour

YouTube: Luxe Du Jour

Pinterest: Luxe Du Jour

Twitter: @luxe_dujour

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Nanxi and Tina

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Blaze.tech Launches and Raises $3.5 Million Pre-Seed Round for AI-Powered No-Code Software Development

LOS ANGELES, January 11, 2023 — Blaze.tech, the smarter no-code platform that’s revolutionizing the way teams build web apps and tools, announced its official launch and has raised a $3.5 million pre-seed round led by Flybridge Capital and MaC Venture Capital. The round also included participation from investors and unicorn founders in enterprise SaaS including Vlad Magdalin (CEO, Webflow), Mada Seghete (Co-founder, Branch), Mark Schopmeyer (Co-CEO, CaptivateIQ), ACTAI Ventures, Sangha Capital, and Bill Tai. This funding round will accelerate Blaze’s growing customer base, increase the platforms’ integrations, and expand its AI capabilities. 

Today’s public launch follows a successful beta phase in which Fortune 500 companies and startups used Blaze to build dashboards, HIPAA compliant apps, complex workflows, automated invoice generators, and inventory management systems all without writing any code. Because of Blaze’s emphasis on security and its robust suite of enterprise security features, the company has found popularity with organizations in highly regulated industries like healthcare, legal, construction, transportation and logistics, and finance.

With Blaze’s AI-powered no-code platform, teams are able to create and launch highly custom and secure applications and internal tools in minutes. Blaze gives non-technical people the superpower to be entrepreneurial product builders with an intuitive all-in-one drag-and-drop interface and AI system. Blaze AI is powered by OpenAI’s GPT-3 model, the same one used by ChatGPT. App creators can tell Blaze AI to create complex workflows, automatic triggers, custom filters, advanced calculations, and more.

Blaze improves operations and productivity, and with pre-built integrations into Airtable, DocuSign, Freshdesk, Google Sheets, Salesforce, Stripe, Shopify, and many more tools, users can build multiple apps on top of their existing tech stack.

The no-code/low-code market is one of the fastest growing markets (from $25 Billion to $187 Billion in 2030), and Blaze’s unique positioning is enabling teams to build software with complexity, customizability, and security that otherwise would require writing code.

“We’re so excited to maximize the talents of people inside organizations by giving them the ability to solve business problems with software,” said Nanxi Liu, Co-CEO of Blaze. “We’re seeing individuals supercharge and significantly increase the efficiency of their team’s operations with Blaze.”

“Our users can implement their app’s business logic in just a few clicks because Blaze has done all the difficult work on the technical side to provide a platform that generates intuitive front-ends and secure, scalable back-ends,” said Tina Denuit-Wojcik, Co-CEO of Blaze.

“We are thrilled to support the Blaze team in their mission to create powerful tools and dashboards without the need for expensive engineering resources,” said Adrian Fenty, General Partner and Co-Founder of MaC Venture Capital. “Nanxi and Tina have the business acumen to be huge disruptors in the industry, and because they’ve experienced these challenges first-hand, we know Blaze is building a top-tier product.”

“Nanxi and Tina are exceptionally talented founders with deep insights into the needs of Blaze’s customer base. Having watched how well they led and capital efficiently managed their prior company to significant success, we were delighted to invest in this dynamic duo,” said Chip Hazard, General Partner and Co-Founder of Flybridge Capital.

Additional investors in the round include Dean Schnider (Partner, Najafi Companies), Felicia Curcuru (CEO of Binti), Holly Liu (Co-Founder, Kabam), Lin Capital, Michael Einziger (co-founder of the band Incubus), Mike Lu (co-founder of Triller), Root and Shoot Ventures, Socially Financed, and The K Fund.

About Blaze.tech

Blaze.tech is the smarter no-code platform that’s revolutionizing the way teams build web apps and tools. Blaze’s AI-powered platform improves operations and productivity by enabling non-technical people to build and launch custom software in minutes, without writing any code! From dashboards and workflows to portals and more, Blaze’s all-in-one-builder has pre-built integrations, security and reliability. 

Blaze is headquartered in Los Angeles and was founded in 2022. The founders, Nanxi Liu and Tina Denuit-Wojcik, previously founded Enplug, a leading digital signage software, which was acquired in 2021.

For more information, visit Blaze.tech.

Press Contact:

press@blaze.tech 

Press release documents here.

Image Source: Mila Supinskaya Glashchenko / Shutterstock

News

Indian-American’s Thriving Community Create A Positive Impact In North Texas

The rising population of Indian-Americans in North Texas is proving to be a strong force. Indian-Americans like Singh have permanently shaped North Texas’ cultural landscape in a variety of fields, including technology, education, and politics.

Tony Singh grew up with a father in the Indian Navy and moved every couple of years. Today, he’s settled in Little Elm, and even elected as councilman to serve his new neighborhood. Singh established initiatives to benefit Little Elm residents, while actively and regularly volunteering himself.

Most Indian-American employees work in only three industries: computer science and mathematics, management, and health care. Among all immigrants, Indian-Americans are the highest earners in the state. For this reason, Dinesh Hooda came to Texas in 2011 in search of employment.

Dinesh Hooda’s family had trouble adjusting until he attended India Association of North Texas’ Indian Independence Day. Through this, they established friends with Indian-Americans in North Texas who share similar experiences and struggles. Hooda is currently Uber’s senior technical program manager.

The fastest-growing ethnic group in the state is Asian, with Indian-Americans making up the majority of the group. Texas has the second-largest population of Indian Americans in the nation overall. This group will expand even more in the upcoming years, which could have a significant impact in the area. 

And while there are many struggles and difficulties to face as immigrants in the state, there are also lots of groups and communities willing to reach out to help one another and make each other feel welcome and at home.

Image Souce: olliecantos.com

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Blind Filipino-American Civil Rights Attorney Gets Elected As West Covina City Council Member

Filipino-American Ollie Cantos, who was born with a visual impairment, is now taking his experience and knowledge to West Covina City Hall.

In 1997, he graduated from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles with a law degree. He served as a staff attorney at the Disability Rights Legal Center after graduating. He also held various roles as a civil rights attorney in the Washington, D.C. government before the coronavirus emerged.

Now, he is a sworn-in member of the West Covina city council and is looking forward to contributing back to his community, where he was raised by his Filipino immigrant parents.

“My excitement level is off the charts because this represents the culmination of a lot of hard work of countless people that got us here and when we look at the opportunities that are ahead of us to unite, and to be supportive of making the city better, this day is also historic,” Cantos said in an interview.

Cantos will collaborate with a fellow Filipino on the current city council, as Letty Lopez-Viado, the first Filipino-Mexican mayor of the city, was also elected unopposed in November. She was first elected to the city council in 2018 and served as mayor of the city from 2020 to 2021.

“Though he can’t see with his eyes, he sees with his heart,” Lopez-Viado said of Cantos as she got sworn in. “He’s a very intelligent, well-spoken gentleman, and I’m very excited to work with him.”

Image Source: Considered Objects

Stories

Japanese-American Designer Sara Sakanaka Revamps Vintage Kimonos Into Modern Clothing

Each of us has a unique way of imparting the memories, stories, and mementos we want to pass on to our future generations. As for 39-year-old Japanese-American designer Sara Sakanaka, the way is by incorporating ancient tales into modern clothing.

In her studio in Brooklyn, Sara preserves a little drawstring bag that her grandmother sewed for her decades ago. One of Sakanaka’s oldest mementos, this heirloom represents a long-standing ideology and was made from leftover fabric.

You will also find in her studio, folded stacks of rescued textiles waiting for her to stitch them into something new, exactly like her grandmother used to do as a hobby.

After her grandmother passed away, Sara began studying the kimonos she had inherited from her. She realized that giving these garments a second chance through reconstruction was a means of healing and re-establishing her identity and cultural roots.

Her initial creation was a classic, collared, button-down shirt. She embroidered a tiered patchwork flower fashioned from leftover silk scraps inside each garment she produced.

“There’s this whole idea that objects have lives,” she says in a Vogue interview. “I like to see every piece as a truly considered object in that way,” thus, naming her label as Considered Objects.

Considered Objects offers tapered silk slacks, oversized coats, two-toned vests, draped dresses, and hand-sewn accessories. Each item is made of recyclable materials, and within each garment is a silk scrap flower and a tag. Each shirt comes with a drawstring bag, a keepsake designed to be handed on like the one she inherited from her grandma.