Description

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Could this simple invention reshape fashion?

In this episode, we sit down with Denise Ho, founder of KITDO, who transformed her 20 years of styling experience into an innovative solution that's changing how we interact with our clothes. From graduating RISD to working in New York's fashion scene, to becoming a sought-after stylist in Hong Kong, Denise shares her journey of creating a product that's both beautiful and functional.

Transcript

Karis (00:00)
Welcome back to the Unsensible Podcast. Here we discover the unconventional journeys of Asian founders reshaping our world. I'm your host, Karis. I'm really excited about today's story because I'm a huge fan of the brand and the product. And while it's not a usual tech story, it's a perfect example of how clever design can change the world. Our guest today is Denise Ho, founder of KITDO. After 18 years as a fashion stylist, she spotted an opportunity for innovation in something as simple as a safety pin. She shows us that transformative ideas don't always come from complex technology. Sometimes all it takes is a fresh perspective on everyday problems. Welcome Denise, so happy to have you here.

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Denise Ho (00:44)
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

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Karis (00:48)
Before we dive into your creation, KITDO, I want to take our listeners back to the start. So tell us about your journey before KITDO.

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Denise Ho (00:56)
I went to Rhode Island School of Design and I graduated with Apparel Design. After graduation, I decided to move to New York, have a little bit of taste of the fashion industry in America. And so I started interning with a designer. I definitely learned a lot working in the designer studio space. It was very helpful down the line as an entrepreneur too, because working with a small brand especially, you have to do everything. I remember the amount of huge rows of fabric that I had to carry to Midtown to bring it to the production house was like super physical. People think, designers just work in the studio and they sketch all day and do fittings. But yeah, it was quite a physical work. And you've seen like Devil's Wear Prada. It was pretty much me. There was a lot of the running of the errands. and you know walking the dogs and things like that so I started from the ground up I would say.

And then so after two years of New York of working in studio. I just wanted to try a very different environment, so London was an easy access because obviously everyone spoke English and it's a fashion city, so I moved there. I made sure I went out and meet people. I got really lucky. One girl that I met couldn't go to a stylist assistant gig. So I fill in her spot and the stylist I was assisting, her name is Sarah Richardson. And at that time she's one of the cool London stylists working for ID magazine. She really taught me everything that I needed to know about styling, the craft, the creativity.

I remember there was one shoot that was for ID Magazine. We got invited to go to the Puma warehouse to grab all these like off-season stocks. We went into the warehouse, took a lot of stock and went back to her house and started chopping up all the pieces and put it back together. I was the one who was sewing, she was the one who was pinning and turned them into these figure-hugging dresses and then jumpsuit. at that time, I was blown away by the creativity. thought, wow, styling is so much more creative than being a fashion designer in a way. so I was hooked and that was maybe 20 years ago. I'm still styling after so many years and I'm still in love with it.

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Karis (03:15)
I understand that fashion runs in your family too. Your mother was also in the industry. So tell me, what was it like growing up with such heavy fashion influence?

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Denise Ho (03:27)
I knew I what I wanted to be in fashion and ever since I was around 10 years old and that for sure was heavily influenced by my mom. My mom was a buyer for Jean Paul Gaultier and she was one of the people who brought the brand to Hong Kong during the early 90s. I still remember clearly that my mom would bring back all these Jean Paul Gaultier clothes for her and my dad. And then my sister and my sister and I would wear Junior Gaultier, which is the second line of Gautier till now I'm still so mad at myself that I didn't keep any junior Gautier because the brand doesn't exist anymore.

Imagine like the old Hong Kong and then like my mom and dad, my sister and I would walk around the old Hong Kong in like decked out Gautier you know, like just that vision is like, wow.So I knew at a very young age that I wanted to be in fashion. And my mom she had her own brand at that time. she used to bring me to her shows. And then I remember, you know, Jamie and I, my sister and I would hang out at restaurants with a lot of fashion people. So that world has always been very fascinating to me.

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Karis (04:33)
Fascinating to imagine just growing up in that atmosphere surrounded by fashion. And it's really amazing how these early influences really stay with us. You've clearly had a very successful career in styling. I've seen you in magazines, which makes me very curious. Was becoming a founder always part of the plan?

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Denise Ho (04:42)
No, no, definitely not.

I've always wanted to be a fashion designer. Mostly because I thought in fashion, that's the only job that's available.And actually in 2012 I started a kids wear brand it's called A for Apple I met my previous business partner He's a kids wear manufacturer and then we really hit it off and the next thing I know we came up with the name and then next thing is the collection and then we doing trade shows but the brand really took off when we did a collaboration with Opening Ceremony. That's when Barneys picked it up, a lot of really cool stores in America picked it up yeah but the same time like I knew after two years in that that really wasn't my passion so I stopped doing it and then slowly evolved into doing some freelance work with Redress.

That's when I really touch onto like the sustainability world. From that, I really learned about the supply chain and what sustainability is about from the NGO point of view. started another brand called First of I wanted to start something that is slow fashion. Also, I wanted to do a social impact brand.

So I went around calling all these women centers in Hong Kong looking for ladies from low-income family I remember I called around 20 only two of them replied to me and then I went there and I started having these very small knitting classes with four or five women and once they get the hang of I hired them to knit my pattern and created these really beautiful one-of-a-kind sweaters. So I remember I did a project with Lane Crawford with a brand called Maiyet that was definitely still one of the beautiful project that kept really close to my heart. Yeah, but obviously that wasn't a very sustainable business because it takes 30 hours to do one sweater and I even flew to India to figure out you know whether I could put it into scale but I don't know at that time I just did not have the right team I did not have the right people on board I just couldn't picture myself doing it in the very long term so yesSo I put it on pause, plus I got pregnant and I couldn't smell wool anymore. so to answer to your question, no, not in the beginning, but I slowly feel like, you know, I have that bug, you know, wanted to be an entrepreneur. I love product. I love branding. So...And it's kind of evolved into something that's bigger and bigger to me.

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Karis (07:34)
So you're actually a serial entrepreneur.

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Denise Ho (07:38)
I guess so. Yeah, I just have, I'm a bit of a doer. You know, if I put my, put my heart into something, I get into this obsessive mode and then I just want to get it started. And I think I'd have that fire in me for sure.Karis (07:43)Yeah, and I love that the impact is actually a serious part of your venture in and obviously in KITDO, where we're going to talk about. Do you remember that moment that led you to

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Denise Ho (08:06)
There's definitely a lot of aha moments to create KITDO but my big one was being a stylist on set for so long. And then you have no idea the amount of samples that I have ripped through using the safety pin. So safety pin is pretty much an essential in all like stylist kit, I'm not sure whether you're familiar with the stylist kit. It's usually like a little either a toolbox or like a little pouch that is full of all these little tools that stylists use in order to you know work with the clothes and reshape it, make sure everything fits or doesn't things doesn't fly around everywhere and things like that. So in my stylist kit for example I would have fishing wires. I would have these like crazy hardware clamps that's made of heavy metals because sometimes with gowns like you know once you crunch them up especially in like a brocade or thicker fabric like you need like a wide enough clip to like hold everything in place so I have these like hard like these hardware shop kind of clamps and then I have obviously the usual like double sided tape weak ones and strong. I have all these different kinds of but the essential thing that you have is safety pins. All stylists have that. All in different sizes. You have these tiny little baby ones and it comes in like these, like even up to this big. So we use them. And because it is the quickest way to resize your clothes. But the amount of samples that I've ruined through using safety pin is like I cannot, I can't even tell you how many incidents that once you start, let's say, pinning a chiffon dress and then the models start posing and you know doing all these extravagant like gestures and then the holes just start ripping and ripping and ripping yeah and i'm talking about these like thousands of dollars of gowns i just always wonder like how come stylists are still using this when i just don't find them very user-friendly

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Karis (10:07)
Yeah, that's interesting. Very acute observation and also just a frustration of like, this doesn't work, led you to creating.

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Denise Ho (10:14)
Yeah. Yeah, I know, this feels so annoying. Yeah.

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Karis (10:18)
Now that we have a bit of your background, of your family, fashion influence, and also your design journey, let's talk about KITDO in more detail. I have a favorite question that I ask all founder. If you have only 30 seconds to describe KITDO, your brand, what would it be? How would you describe it?

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Denise Ho (10:35)
Mm-hmm.30 seconds.

KITDO is an accessory that create endless possibility for your clothes. It's actually made with very lightweight aluminum in shaped in an organic piece. And then what's interesting about it is like it's got this two hole detail with a very strong magnet insert, which allows you to loop, to bond, and also clinch fabrics together. our vision has always been, you know, make KITDO into a key accessory for the next generation of fashionistas. We see them thriving on sharing and also celebrating each other's creativity and also self-expression.

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Karis (11:18)
I love this. I'm actually wearing it right now. This is such an elegant solution. there is the functionality of transforming clothes, but also the aesthetic. And you know, sometimes the best innovation actually comes from really looking at a problem that others have overlooked. Like you mentioned, every stylist in their kit, have the safety pin they've been using it but you are the person who's like, there's a better way. So looking at a day-to-day headache with a fresh pair of lens is what I think is the magical superpower of founder and yeah that aha moment you share is pretty amazing.

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Denise Ho (11:55)
I love how you put it because it is a very good way to discover an innovative product, I would say. I feel like it's easier also for the founder to talk about the story. you know, product these days, it really requires a personal touch.

If it is a product that came from a problem that a her heads, she's not really afraid to you know constantly talk about it because it's from her personal experience. Yeah I think that's super important.

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Karis (12:26)
Okay, I know that you actually have some KITDO with you. why don't you show us how we use it.

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Denise Ho (12:32)
For sure, yeah. So I have the big size one which is the original. So what you do is like it's a two piece accessory so you just like slide it open because it's got these really strong magnet inserts so you can't technically just yank it. You have to slide it. So what you do is like for example I'm wearing, I'm gonna hide my necklace. I'm wearing this v-neck and you might think that is a bit too low so you can like close it and just put this piece here and just put this one. You can sort of close it. Yeah, so it becomes sort of like resize neckline or you can okay I'm gonna stand up a little bit. So let's say this shape this dress is a little shapeless and then you can loop it like this.and then you can just loop it through but leave this little piece of fabric right there and then you use the other piece and just put it right there. See? Yeah. So Yeah and then like you know it's great with scarves so I've got this like random piece of extra piece of neckline fabric here and then you can just maybe go like this. I can even like put it under my shirt so it doesn't like get wobbly and then yeah something like that.

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Karis (14:02)
I know that when you're creating KITDO, you really want something that is like beautiful, but also functional. So you've actually gone through quite a lot of prototype. I know that. What are the biggest challenges in creating this beautiful piece right here?

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Denise Ho (14:17)
Talking about prototype, I wanted to show you because you asking me about Yes, so that was my first prototype. so yeah, I guess this was my biggest challenge in the sense that because my background has always been clothes and know fabrics and things like that. yeah, so I guess my entry to start was very challenging. I need to turn into something more visual because I'm such a visual person. So I went down to the stationery store and I got some clay and did this.I have two of these one is missing right now but yeah I just started looping fabric and and start playing and it was during COVID too so there was no better time to do it and the more I played the more I was like this could be you know something interesting and that's when I evolved into a version of this but bigger and maybe two holes so fabrics can loop through and this just start like playing and playing and just spending the time into finding a sample that I hope the manufacturer will understand obviously he did not he was just like what is this yeah so there was a was a lot of R &D process that went through it. But at that time I wasn't even thinking about it's gonna look like this right now. I could not imagine. was just... yeah. It gets me really emotional just think about it because it was a very trip down memory lane definitely.

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Karis (15:52)
Aww.You mentioned going to the factory and talking to people. That's, think, one of the greatest challenge for a founder trying to develop something that is not exist before. People haven't seen it before. So you have to have a very strong vision and almost like relentless pursuit of quality.

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Denise Ho (16:13)
Yeah, I think I heard it the other day, which was from Sarah Blakely from Spanx. She says something along the line of like, if you are creating a product from an industry that you're not familiar with, you are disrupting the industry. And I thought that was really well put in the sense that because you didn't come from that world and then, you know, coming in to create, to work within that industry with a blank mindset, right? That kind of gives you a very fresh take into that particular industry and you will create something that would for sure be disruptive that was really really well put and interesting because that's pretty much me right like I had no idea about the the accessory industry and I just came in making these like little little clay mold and then yeah I'm sure no one does it way right so so yeah i thought that was really good

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Karis (17:08)
There are so many ways you can talk about KITDO, you can position KITDO because it's such a versatile piece, one of which is obviously the sustainability angle that you mentioned before. So tell me your strategic approach to communicating or positioning KITDO. Why have you chosen to talk about it in a certain way and not other?

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Denise Ho (17:28)
After KNOTTI I was working with a sustainable brand and the brand came from an NGO. So from that experience, I was really deep dive into, that sustainability world. I was even sleeping in factory, trying to figure out how to do zero waste. And the outcome of that was it's very difficult to be fully sustainable. Like I think the most sustainable thing is don't buy anything new and don't make anything new. when I put KITDO all together, the sustainability story is there because, at the end of day, we are encouraging people to, work with the clothes they already have it's about creating new instead of buying new. So I knew the DNA of the brand will be very sustainable already, Like I don't need to talk much about it and not overflow with information basically, marketing-wise, it just doesn't work. And also we're touching on this industry that is at the end of days about, dreaming, fantasy, looking sexy and things like that. so I would definitely, you know, find the right language that the customer would understand and would accept the brand a little bit more but without losing the sustainability language 100 % yeah but yeah you just have to do it in a very delicate way I feel.

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Karis (18:42)
I remember having this conversation with you previously in Soho House and I just find it such a smart approach because it's very easy to take the sustainability angle lot of people are talking about it and it's very easy to think, yeah, I can just follow that angle. But I love how you go back to the product itself and the target audience. People who are going to use KITDO are people who care about whether they're stylish or not, and then they want to be cool. And in order to drive these change of being sustainable later on, you have to maybe start with a different angle to increase adoption or make it a more desirable product to drive change.

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Denise Ho (19:20)
Yeah, but also like if you look at social media, there's there people already doing it, right? they find all these different ways to rewear the clothes over and over again, but they do it in a way without mentioning that, I'm trying to be sustainable, That's sort of that's the language that they're trying to say. I think that route is definitely more smart and I think a lot of brands can follow that sort of like language.

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Karis (19:42)
You've mentioned in one of your interviews, a very interesting statistic that people only typically wear 10 to 20 % of their wardrobe, which I actually went to my wardrobe and look at what I have and I personally concur. Tell me more about that insight and tell me how KITDO play onto that insight as well

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Denise Ho (20:01)
Yeah, you're totally right. Because of the brand, I obviously wanted to do the I came upon all these statistics and one of them that really shocked me, we're only wearing 10 to 20 % of our own wardrobe.So after I heard that, I did the same thing that you did. I did a wardrobe audit. And I suggest everyone to do this because it is a very eye-opening thing. Me, myself, guilty as charged. I found that I have maybe 20 pairs of jeans and that I wear only two. You know, black pants, like maybe 15. I only wear like one.Yeah, so I also started to I guess have like a little bit of an internal meditation on like Okay, why am I not wearing these pieces there were pieces that were really old that after all these wash, the shape kind of became a bit wobbly. some of them are actually not wearable, but at the end of the day, I think it's that concept in my head that's like, okay, this is old. I don't want to, you know, I started to think about how do I make my clothes new again? When I'm on set, would sometimes because of color, I would bring these old clothes on set. Let's I, they want me to put this, purple outfit together, right? Okay. But then I couldn't get any purple shirt from the PR. So I'll grab something from my house and sort of like slot it in, but you know, that purple shirt not necessarily looks really new So I would do, you know, a lot of clamping and clipping and taping so that it will fit into the shape that is modern again. So that's when, you know, I thought a product or an accessory that has a function of these clip will work because it really does give you that inject of newness when you do something to your clothes. And I find that concept very fascinating and very useful to be honest. I have pieces that is sitting in my wardrobe for so long that I'm now wearing because I have the product.

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Karis (22:03)
Yeah, I find it really fun too. It's kind of like a treasure hunt now. So you can go back to your wardrobe and say, okay, what if like this part you can pinch it and then change the shape a little bit and you kind of like have a new piece again.Now it's almost year four for KITDO, right? Getting into you. Yeah.

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Denise Ho (22:20)
Yeah, wow, that really flew by quick, yeah.

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Karis (22:24)
Yeah, so you mentioned social media. I know you guys are very active and partner with quite a lot of people. So I would love to hear about any of the feedback that you've received so far. What are the most memorable ones? It can be from social media, it can be from people who buying your product.

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Denise Ho (22:28)
Mm-hmm. Mm.Mm-hmm.I guess obviously like what you said is like our dream come true, right? Like the fact that our customers are going back to the wardrobe and reshaping the clothes that they already have that's like my greatest joy when I hear it right and I remember there were times when I was in london we were shooting on the street with the product and someone stopped be like wait. I know that product And that's when I that how I discovered the product to actually rolling out on the market and for people on the street to recognize it I think for me that's like I would never imagine that that would happen yeah that was definitely one of the moments that I felt very grateful forYeah, and winning awards, that we like around five international design award last year. Yeah, so.That was pretty amazing. Being a stylist, I would have never thought that I would go on stage in Italy and got a design award for this little piece of product that I came up with. I cannot count how many exactly moments. There's just too many. There's so many.

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Karis (23:48)
Yeah, that's wonderful.

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Karis (23:50)
Is it easy to say single-minded and focus on just one product? Has there been any challenges or thoughts about, should we expand? Should we do different things?

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Denise Ho (24:01)
Yeah, constantly. mean like we are surrounded by people pushing us to, you know...do more products and we chose to do e-commerce mostly. everything is within our control, we're not forced to, you know, produce more style. So I'm quite grateful for that.But I do think having one product has its advantages just because like you can really perfect the product. You you still have a lot of space to tweak and make sure everything is better than before. For example, we're going through our third round of rebranding right now.I feel very proud of that, I know that the next one is, is it will be better, you know, and that's what we thrive for.Yeah, so I think there's nothing wrong with, you know, having one singular product as long as you have a very, very strong product and everything that goes around the product, which is the company itself, is very intact and strong.

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Karis (25:02)
So you mentioned rebranding. What sparked that thought? What makes you say, actually I want to look at refreshing our look.

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Denise Ho (25:05)
That's a really good question by the way.We're collecting a lot of feedback from our customers and also from our community. And then there's definitely a lot of rooms of improvement. We are working heavily on our branding right now. I'm not talking about, just about logo, but the story. last year I spent a lot of time justwork on proof of concept, make sure the product is on the right people and really drive sales and make sure our sales are going smoothly. now we have orders every day everything is quite like steady there wasn't enough work on the branding side, especially now, like we have a big group of community and also we have a big customer base. That means we are at the position right now they're like okay right who are our customers exactly right and also like from these customers like how does it trigger down to like I will translate that into our branding our branding stories that's like our biggest asset and I really want to put in time and make sure that is perfect before we start scaling.

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Karis (26:09)
We're looking ahead now because you mentioned scaling. So I heard you're expanding into Europe and trying to tap the market over there. So tell me what are the opportunities right now? What are the challenges in this new market?

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Denise Ho (26:12)
Building extending to another market has always been something that we talked about because we spend most of the time focusing on the U.S., you know, the people that we see or the people that we invite to to do content for us are mostly based in U.S. But there's actually a lot of organic sales coming from Europe.Immediately we see an appetite right for a product like KITDO. I actually went to Europe few months ago. I went to Paris and Berlin and realized that the way that people are using KITDO is quite different in very different demographics. The challenge is logistic. so if you talk to any e-commerce companies that's always shipping to Europe it be like a headache.I think the language too if we do ads or also produce any kind of content let's say newsletter or something like that that's just like the little works here and there that we need to work on but but Europe is definitely like a good market for us I went to Berlin and I was so amazed with how people were using KITDO.

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Karis (27:24)
That's very exciting. And also it proves that sometimes even when you are the creator of a product, you can't fully predict when it gets out to the market how it's being used as well. think that's fascinating. Now, many of our listeners are aspiring entrepreneurs themselves. So you've created a very successful product.If you were to give some advice to other founders who are also trying to solve, you know, everyday problems through design, what would you say to them?

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Denise Ho (27:54)
First is do your research. Make sure you're entering a niche market is very, crucial. Design-wise, obviously keep it simple. I think consumers are quite impatient. And if you ask them to do this and that, sometimes it can be challenging.And another one that I was thinking is to expect change for example KITDO right like we're going through the third round of rebranding. The world is moving so fast, so you kind of need to evolve together with that kind of speed and, embracing change. think that was a big thing for me to to see that as like a positive thing. And one thing that really helped us when we were developing the product is that.We were doing a lot of focus groups. That really helped us to make sure we are on the right track it's so interesting to create these focus groups targeting a very different demographic and also ask the right questions. I think that was very very helpful for us. And of course do your finance right? You know As a founder. You have bills coming in from everywhere you know having a bookkeeper is always really useful. And yeah just do things really leanly like. What I see a lot of founders, what happens is that they get a bit excited and started spending money here and there. I think there's a lot of things that I paid for in the very beginning of KITDO that I wish I didn't. We're keeping things super lean right now. All our shoots are done with just two or three people sometimes.I would say that's like a very good advice as like an entrepreneur, of a starter that has an innovative product for sure. Yeah. Take care of your finance and do focus groups.

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Karis (29:41)
So customer research, keep it simple, embracing change and take care of your finance. That's wonderful. Do

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Denise Ho (29:52)
Focus groups. Yeah,

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Karis (29:52)
focus group. Yes.

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Denise Ho (29:54)
I guess that's part of research, yeah.

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Karis (29:57)
We've covered a lot of ground today. Before we wrap up, this is my second favorite question because it's an exciting one. What is for KITDO and what excites you the most about KITDO's future?

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Denise Ho (29:59)
Yay!Okay. Okay.Well, 2025 is a big year for us. As mentioned, the rebrand, which I'm really excited. You'll be seeing a lot of, you know, KITDO with new packaging, new visuals, new language. And also I mentioned to you that we are scaling, right? Like, so that's the business part. we have lined up a really good manufacturer that is able to lower the cost.We partnered up with a really good marketer so we will be scaling hopefully in like Q1 so I'm quite excited about that. that's the business part but for me personally is all these projects that I have in mind circulating in my brain might be finally coming to flourish in 2025. Yeah that's the part that excites me so much. Yeah doing all the projects that I love, connecting with our community.and then connecting with creatives, So 2025 you'll be seeing a lot of exciting things, a lot of collaboration, so I'm excited, very excited.

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Karis (31:14)
Everyone stay tuned to the latest from KITDO Denise, thank you so much for sharing your journey with us today.It's really inspiring to see how you've used the power of design to turn, you know, a bit of a styling headache and a pain point to something really elegant, simple and game changing. I'm sure your story will inspire a lot of aspiring founders. So thank you for joining us today.

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Denise Ho (31:36)
No, thank you so much. This was really fun.‍

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