Uppy Media‘s Facebook app allows users to tag the clothes they’re wearing in photos and share them with friends. Users can also use the app to ask others what they’re wearing.

The company makes money through affiliate links, so if you just have to have that dress your best mate wore on Friday night, you’re in luck – and so are Uppy.

For similar ideas in this space check out Pixazza, Udorse , and Coolspotters.

In celebration of St Patrick’s Day, this week we’re focusing exclusively on interesting businesses and entrepreneurs from the island of Ireland, both North and South. Suggestions welcome.

Ark°, Ireland

Ark° is a non-profit clothing brand with a mission – to promote Acts of Random Kindness. The idea is that each time you wear an Ark° branded t-shirt, you are reminded to perform a random kind act for a stranger.

As founder Cameron explains:

“The idea—one ARK every time the clothing is worn. That’s it. Buy someone a coffee, give up your seat on the bus, help a drunk home.”

Cameron founded Ark° straight out of secondary school and after designing, sourcing and selling several hundred of the tees in 2008, his first big Ark was to empty the company bank account to buy Christmas presents for the homeless. The company has been run as a non-profit ever since, reinvesting profits back into their campaign to spread Arkiness around the globe.

After reading about Ark°, we pinged Cameron an email to find out a little more, here’s what he had to say:

So where did the idea for ARK come from?

The Ark° idea was born on a 4-day hike through the Wicklow mountains when I was 17 years old and in my final year in school. I basically wanted to create a business that genuinely pursued a social vision through its business.

I had recently been living this ‘Ark° lifestyle’ of Arking people in my every day life – buying coffees for people behind me, sending gifts to people for no reason at all, clearing cafe tables for the craic, and thought it was something everyone should try at least once.

I decided the best way to attach this idea to a product was in a t-shirt – a t-shirt that physically reminded you every time you put it on to do an Ark° for someone. Simple

What’s been the reaction so far – any interesting stories of how people have been taking the ARK idea on board?

Reaction has been superb. We’ve had sales in over 25 countries around the world and our Facebook following is growing daily (www.facebook.com/ArkHQ).

The best response has probably come from the Friday Challenge – an Ark° challenge we give out every Friday where fans have 24 hours to act. Last week was a simple challenge to buy someone in a local newsagents a treat for their break.

Here’s a quote from one Arker -

…he couldn’t believe that we didn’t “work” for ark and weren’t getting paid to be nice! he was genuinely pleasantly shocked that we just did it as an ark°…watch this space for another fan of ark° …from india too! Edel and Desi

All in all, it’s incredible to think there are people all over the world wearing this t-shirt and doing a simple Ark° every time they wear the tee.

What are your plans for the future?

How long you got?

We’ll be expanding the Ark° t-shirt range in a few weeks with 4 new designs. Another 4 to come in a further 4 weeks.

We’re launching an education program for kids. Piloting the scheme in Dublin and then planning to bring it all over Ireland to inspire kids to act in an Arkish way. Launching a kids range after that hopefully.

Ark° underwear will be coming out in the next few weeks… for undercover kindness.

We launched a Rep program this week where we’re employing people all around the world to act as Reps and spread the word. Fancy bringing Ark° to your college?

We have some crazy social connection ideas where we’ll be using our profits to launch some cool campaigns to bring that long-lost connection back into society again. Stay tuned!

I guess we’re a Virgin brand for kindness. Who knows, we may start a wee Ark airline some day… the sky’s the limit.

Site: www.arkhq.com

Welcome to the world’s first augmented reality t-shirt, courtesy of T-post, a t-shirt subscription service, with techie help from Moment77.

Once you’ve got your t-shirt, you visit the appropriate page on T-post.se, point your web cam at your chest and then play a little game of rock, paper, scissors.

If you don’t fancy shelling out for the t-shirt, you can play along with a printable version (download).

Via: tcritic.com

This one isn’t exactly new, having launched at the end of 2008, but it’s certainly worth a mention as a business that combines passion with a funky business model.

Calkwalk Genius is both online retailer and a way for consumers to back up and coming designers by buying shares in their new collections – a bit like SellABand but for dresses not albums.

Aspiring designers register on the site in the hope of raising around £50,000 to fund the production of between 4 and 7 key pieces which are then sold via the site.

Shares are sold for £11 each (£1 going to cover admin costs) and when 5000 have been sold, Catwalk Genius supervise the production of the collection. Any profits from the sale of the collection are paid out equally to designers, backers and the company (diagram above).

But as they say themselves, “it’s mostly about the satisfaction of owning a stake in your own fashion line – since there are no guarantees that your favourite designer will hit the funding target”.

As with all crowd-sourced and crowd-funded models, allowing consumers to back a collection creates a ready-made market and interested, engaged fan-base to help spread the word. We’ve seen it working with music, with startups, with films, with fashion and even with crowd funded sports teams – so where else can the crowd funded model be applied?

Site: www.catwalkgenius.com

If I was to give advice to someone considering starting a business it would be to do something different, execute it well and do it with personality.

Doing Something Different and Executing Well

Self-funded startup Blank Label produces and sells co-created men’s dress shirts online. Using a slick design-it-yourself application (pictured above), users can select fabrics, detailing, customizations, size and cut with prices starting from a very reasonable $45. By turning passive customers into engaged co-creators Blank Label stands a good chance of developing a committed following and producing products that people love to talk about.

As one of the founders, Danny Wong, explains:

We originally were a suit and dress shirt company, similar to your custom tailor, but scaling that was problematic, and we wanted to try on a concept that was a bit sexier than just fitted clothing. We wanted to design our own clothing, and give consumers that same power too.

With Blank Label, we’re hoping to revolutionize the retail industry to have more consumers adopt co-creation and turn away from mass-production.

And Some Personality

Of course, bespoke tailoring has been around forever. The difference here is the simplicity of the online process and the positioning – Blank Label has been designed to appeal very definitely to the ‘young guys’ which get frequent reference on the site.

You can see that in everything from the copy and graphics, to the showcase designs and the provocatively posed cartoon woman who appears as the application loads. Moreover it seems to be a pretty authentic voice too:

The reason we’re doing this is for the experience of being an entrepreneur, and building a business that is world-changing …

Originally, I thought that owning your own company, especially a fashion company would get me a lot of attention (yes, from the women), as well as make me some crazy-awesome hot-shot. Boy was I wrong! Being a partner in a startup really doesn’t mean anything to other people. But to me, it means the world. I suppose it’s all relative. But it’s all good this way.

In other words, Danny and his partners seem to be building the kind of business they want to own – and that they would buy from. That enthusiasm for what they’re doing, and the process of doing it, come across well.

Big idea? Check. Well-executed? Check. With personality? Check.

Site: www.blank-label.com

(Thanks to Danny for taking the time out to answer our questions.)

Last year we featured Granny-sourced knitwear – this time it’s Mom’s turn.

Each month Haik Avanian’s mom will take an old sweater of yours (and $30), unravel it, knit it back into something new and send it back. This month she’s turning sweaters into scarves.

Although it doesn’t look like Haik’s planning on ‘scaling up’ his mom into a fully-fledged manufacturing outfit, it’s easy to see how this kind of idea could be turned into a funky little cottage business for someone with an eye for design and some needle skills.

Site: rekn.it Via: JoshSpear.com

T-shirt businesses seem to be providing no end of interesting titbits recently. Our newest find, Holstee creates designs with zip up ‘holster’ pockets sewn in.

They also have a strong ‘ecological’ component – based on their concept of ‘people + planet + product’ – that incorporates the use of green materials throughout the business and a commitment to lend 10% of sales to entrepreneurs in the developing world via Kiva.

Holstee is a product of Incubaker, a New York City based innovation lab – and is another good example of a mainstream idea (t-shirts), being given a unique twist through good design and a healthy infusion of pesonality and backstory.

It’s what separates a product from a brand.

Site: www.holstee.com

The world of fashion is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a great source of innovation and new business ideas. Over the last few months we’ve covered eco-chic fashion, ethically sourced fashion, crowd sourced fashion ideas and even ‘Granny sourced’ fashion.

Belfast-based Curious Tales fits neatly into this innovation/fashion lovefest with  Victorian-inspired original designer jackets and accessories made from refashioned recycled materials.

Each jacket has a tiny story of ‘the curious character who may have owned it before’, stitched to the inside – combining founder Julie-Anne Graham’s love for fashion, recycling and creative writing:

“When I’m feeling particularly fiendish, I like to operate on my collection of previously-loved jackets.

I dissect them into collars, cuffs, pockets and sleeves. … I add embroidery, buttons and ribbons, and stitch everything together again with fabulous threads. Then I dream up a story and write it on the inside for you to find …”

As the name suggests, Curious Tales tells a story about both the clothes themselves and the business as a whole – something innovative fashion businesses seem particularly good at doing.

Site: www.curioustales.com