I wrote earlier that one of the large trends in mass customization is the creation of a network structure where an intermediary brokers between diverse retailers and manufacturers for custom products. Customax.com or Bivolino Services are good examples for this trend in the fashion industry.
As reported before, Paragon Lake wants to bring this model to the retail world. Forbes just published a nice Video report about them (you have to watch a short commercial before it starts!), with interviews with the key persons behind the concept.
Paragon Lake was founded in 2006 by Matt Lauzon while he and fellow students were at Babson College. They were exploring personalization and other new ways that people shop. They soon realized there was an opportunity to drastically improve the way fine jewelry is bought and sold. Their vision led to the creation of Paragon Lake. On a presentation at the Smart Customization Seminar at MIT in November 2008, Matt introduced his company to a larger audience.
The group's focus on fine jewelry was inspired by a friend's search for a present for his girlfriend. The friend thought that jewelry would be the perfect gift, but considered jewelry shopping experience to be intimidating and overwhelming. After visiting a few local jewelers, he was unable to find a piece that was just right. Hearing his story, Matt realized that technology could not only help fix this problem, but also revolutionize an industry.
Paragon Lake joins consumers, retailers and designers together to create one of a kind jewelry using a special sales application tool with really cool rendering capabilities. The video explains the concept quite neatly.
A good background report about the company is here.
A quite similar company, also with the product of customized jewelry, is established in Germany: www.julie-grace.de
Since the beginning of this year, they are cooperating with one of the biggest German mail order companies OTTO, I think this could be a big business.
Posted by: Dirk Fuhlhage | August 18, 2009 at 11:11 AM