Aslaug Magnúsdóttir is what you might call a serial entrepreneur. A Fulbright Scholar with an MBA from Harvard Business School, she is best known for co-founding the innovative luxury fashion e-commerce platform Moda Operandi. Since leaving the company in 2013, the Icelandic businesswoman has turned her attention towards a new project, Tinker Tailor, a revolutionary retail site allowing customers to purchase and customise garments from covetable designers including Marchesa, Rodarte and Alberta Ferretti. An international businesswoman who understands the unique needs of women from around the world, Magnúsdóttir’s work has taken her around the globe – even to the edge of the world.
You grew up in Iceland, can you tell us how you arrived in the US?
I grew up mostly in Iceland – in the capital, Reykjavík – but I spent most of my childhood in Los Angeles because my parents were working in the US. I was exposed to American culture from an early age. Iceland and Los Angeles couldn’t have been more different at the time. Iceland was a very homogenous society and basically no tourists ever came to the country. I came to the US to do a one-year master’s degree at Duke University and ended up never leaving. I wanted a more international career, so I went straight from Duke to Harvard Business School to do my MBA.
Iceland has become a hot destination for world travellers over the past few decades. What has that meant to you?
For years, many people didn’t even know where or what Iceland was. Growing up, there were no tourists but now there are more tourists than residents. The culture has changed and everything has opened up. There are tonnes of restaurants with a booming music and culture scene, many bands and fashion is blooming. More brands are popping up; high-end seafood cuisine is flourishing as well. It’s very positive to have a lot of visitors heading to the country.
You began your career in the financial sector. Did you always plan to migrate into luxury fashion or did it happen naturally?
Growing up in Iceland, I never even thought of fashion as an option. There weren’t any fashion careers in Iceland. There was barely any luxury fashion. My only exposure was through magazines, but I had always been attracted to creative industries. After graduating from Harvard Business School, I went to London for six years to work for McKinsey & Company and started working in fashion via an unusual route: investments. I eventually moved back to the US where I was introduced to Marvin Traub, the former CEO of Bloomingdale’s and the man credited with giving Ralph Lauren his big break, so I was very lucky to join his consulting firm. We worked with luxury brands all over the world. Traub was the ultimate networker and had a vast amount of contacts in the luxury fashion industry. I was itching to be involved operationally, as I’d always been an external advisor as a consultant, so I joined the Gilt Groupe of Gilt.com. It was amazing to experience the fast-paced environment of e-commerce and it was during this time I saw a gap in the market. The luxury customer was being neglected during the global economic crash, so I launched Moda Operandi with Lauren Santo Domingo in 2010.
Aslaug Magnusdottir front row at NYFW
How does travel inspire your decisions as a businesswoman?
Travelling the world and meeting international women really had an impact on how I built both Moda and now Tinker Tailor. When we were going live with Moda, a lot of the US retailers did not ship internationally so this was built into the model from the beginning. Growing up in Iceland you could not get certain brands or styles, so I knew the importance of having this access. The Middle East soon became an important market, and by the time I travelled to places like Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, I realised the women there wanted to customise luxury fashion. Tinker Tailor is all about meeting the needs of different women from around the world. They all love quality luxury brands but their lifestyles and needs vary. It was extremely important to say to these women, “We are giving you the option to customise what you want”. This only became clear to me after talking to luxury customers during my travels around the world.
What does luxury mean to you?
I think luxury is about getting something that is special and customised just for you. I think that is where the industry is moving. It’s the ultimate luxury experience – getting exactly what you want and need in your hand is what luxury is all about.
Can you share a decadent luxury experience you’ve had while travelling?
I was in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia for a Tinker Tailor pop-up experience hosted by Princess Reema [HRH Reema bint Bandar Al Saud] of Saudi Arabia, an investor in our company. She arranged to host us in the desert, in the Saudi equivalent of the Grand Canyon called The Edge of the World [Tuwaiq Escarpment]. No event had ever been done there and she organised the government to set up WiFi in our tent, which was totally decadent. The space was covered in beautiful rugs; there was a DJ, beautiful catering and an ice cream truck, all set up to display couture pieces from our brands. We invited 120 special clients to the desert at around three in the afternoon and the shopping event went until sunset. Bonfires were lit and clients could shop the designers’ collections and set up appointments the following day at a palace in Riyadh. It was the most exceptional and decadent cultural event I have ever been to.
Luxury at the end of the world: Tinker Tailor in Saudi Arabia