Fashion GPS

GPS usually stands for Global Positioning System — the navigation technology that can, among other things, guide you to a clothing store. Fashion GPS was something different: a technology and community platform for the fashion industry itself, built around connecting brands, media and retailers, and sharing samples, events and content between them.

From Fashion GPS to Launchmetrics

In January 2016, Fashion GPS and Augure merged to become Launchmetrics, described as a marketing platform and data analytics solution for the fashion, luxury and cosmetics industries. The combined company set out to help brands discover, activate and measure the voices that matter for their brand — the media, influencers and retailers whose coverage moves product — supported by whitepapers, webinars and podcasts for its users.

The merger made strategic sense because the two halves completed each other. Fashion GPS brought the industry's operational network — who has the samples, who is attending, who is covering what — while Augure brought influencer and media analytics. Together they formed a single system in which a brand could manage the practical work of fashion public relations and measure its results in the same place.

GPS Radar: The Private Fashion Community

GPS Radar is the community layer that survived the merger as a named product: a highly curated, private fashion community where brands, media and retailers connect to share noteworthy news, events and opportunities in a tailored dashboard environment. Membership is curated rather than open, which is the point — the value of the network lies in every member being a genuine industry participant whose invitations, samples and coverage matter to the others.

So does Fashion GPS help you find fashion? In its own way, yes: not by locating stores on a map, but by locating opportunities inside the industry — the right editor, the right event, the right moment. Readers researching the wider industry will also find the research and business intelligence resources linked from this page, which cover the analytical side of fashion that platforms such as Launchmetrics were built to serve.

Why the Industry Needed Its Own Platform

Fashion public relations runs on physical logistics that generic software handles badly: samples that must be tracked from showroom to magazine and back, invitations and seating for shows, image requests against deadlines, and contact lists that change every season. Fashion GPS existed because the industry needed a system built around those specific objects — samples, events and editorial coverage — rather than around generic contacts and emails. Its merger into Launchmetrics added measurement to that operational base, answering the question every brand asks after the logistics are done: what did the coverage actually achieve? That pairing of operations and analytics is now the standard shape of fashion communications software.