Updated 6:49 p.m. to include screenshots from an anonymous source's dms with SSENSE. Polyvore, online fashion design platform was acquired by SSENSE today and Polyvore's user base was told via an email today that the platform has been shut down. The email explained the Polyvore team was appreciative of the 11 years of loyal users and thanked users for their smiles. It was a horseshit email and a horseshit way to deal with what could have been a positive change. I get that in 2018 the bottom line is important and I get that Polyvore was struggling. None of that negates how valuable a loyal user base is. Although I have my own ideas, I can't really speculate as to why SSENSE wanted Polyvore. I know definitively that it wasn't for the millions of user-made creations, as user profiles were promptly deleted and replaces with a hack job method to potentially download user content. Polyvore operated on the basis of millions of images, clipped into an editor, then users went wild. From interior design; menswear, womenswear, and childrenswear; to scrictly artistic 'sets,' Polyvore users were given a platform to create. And create we did. I joined Polyvore 9 years ago. and I began making sets with clothes from Hollister and Abercrombie I couldn't afford. I told my friends about Polyvore and my friend Claire and I would talk about Polyvore in math class. We'd pull up her profile on her family computer and we'd comment on each other's sets. We'd use the messenger feature to talk about the boys we liked or what we were going to wear to school dances. Then, slowly, as I grew, Polyvore grew. Contests and challenges taught me new brands, new styles, new ways of doing things. In like 2007, there was a trend where users would make mosaic 'sets' out of eyeshadow swatches, creating something new from a boring stale picture. I entered a small contest with an entry I'd worked on for hours. I had outlined a backflipping gymnast's body only using those little colored images. I won. Let me tell you, I was fucking proud, and I had every right to be. I was 13 and creating art that other people cared about. On Twitter today, I've read the stories from hundreds of disappointed Polyvore users. From young children to single mothers, lgbtq+ youth, mentally ill teens, grandmothers, people from Portugal, Italy, Spain, and more, Polyvore was a place for expression, creativity, art. And everything is gone. SSENSE is an online retailer with no editor feature, essentially ripping the least important aspect away from Polyvore and trashing all the gooey creative insides that mattered. They either want user data, email addresses, passwords and more, or they want something else, maybe something trademarked or something in the code, but this wasn't the way to get it. Even if this acquisition was truly the only way and Polyvore didn't sell us to the highest bidder (which I firmly believe) this was not the way to handle it. In the digital age, it has become standard operating practice to give notice when a site is going to shut down. Recently, think about AIM shutting down. Hell, even fucking Picnik let users know what was happening, when it was happening and how to retrieve user data. Polyvore had this responsibility and let us down. They included a link in the email to download user data and to opt out of providing SSENSE with user information but most users report those links as broken. Users who have been able to retrieve data from Polyvore report that 'collections' and 'items' come back in an Excel spreadsheet with broken links to Polyvore which won't open. Users report that the only helpful data they are able to download is their 'sets.' This is something, but this is also nothing. Loads of users were on Polyvore to write, roleplay, interact with friends, etc. All of this is lost. Users were not able to message the friends they had found in the 11 years Polyvore has been online. There was no chance to reach out to contacts to exchange information to get in contact outside of Polyvore. Users have no access to the 'items' they have saved to Polyvore or the 'collections' they made. I remember a long time ago, Polyvore floated the idea of auto deleting the oldest saved 'items' in a user's saved 'items' after a certain amount of time. The blowback was intense and Polyvore was heavily criticized by it's user base. Polyvore promptly rolled back this decision and listened to its users. I am so sad to see that same company do it's users so dirty today. I joined Polyvore in middle school, as an awkward unsure kid in the middle of puberty just trying to find myself, my voice, my style. I used Polyvore for school projects and told my teachers about this cool new design platform. As we can see on Twitter today, teachers were literally in the middle of using Polyvore with their students when it shut down. What now? You couldn't even consider other business models or asking the community for help. Why didn't you float the idea of a pay-to-play model or putting a price on the app? I stayed on Polyvore through high school, creating and expressing myself, learning new brands, new looks, new ways to style. I made friends, I learned from other user's creativity. I grew. I sought refuge on Polyvore when growing up was weird, scary, and rough. I stayed on Polyvore through college. I was busy but sometimes I was able to escape onto Polyvore, make collections and sets, I made digital mood boards and almost used Polyvore as a blog. Before I created Bruised Knuckles, I used Polyvore. Polyvore was the beginning of it all for me. Even in my post-grad life, I used Polyvore. I'd search items or use the platform for inspiration. I would scroll down my feed and absorb the creativity. Polyvore sparked something in me, but unfortunately for Polyvore, that spark grew into a fire. I can't end this story with a hopeful tidbit about another platform I suggest you use or tell you to spam @SSENSE and @Polyvore on Twitter to let them know how bad this fuck up is (although personally, I have been) and I can't tell you that enough signatures on that petition will make Polyvore come back. I can't tell you any of that because this betrayal cuts deep. I supported Polyvore for 9 years. It feels like a 9 year relationship ending over an email and no way to even get my stuff back. I used Polyvore on this website under the Fashion tab, I have a fucking Polyvore mug they sent to me. I'm mad. And I learned, probably through Polyvore, that creativity is an outlet and that's why I'm writing this. I'm sure SSENSE and Polyvore are hoping everyone will just shut up and it will all blow over and they'll get whatever information they wanted or the users will reluctantly come crawling back. I hope with every fiber of my being that they're wrong. I hope the #Polyfam, as Polyvore so presumptuously called us, knows that as creatives we are valuable and we won't be treated as though we're not. If you're coming from Polyvore, please comment your story on the website, tell the world about what you lost, don't let your story be deleted along with your work. Share why Polyvore was important to you, don't stay quiet. The email from Polyvore read: Dear Polyvore Community, Above is Polyvore's download tool that you can find at https://account-update.polyvore.com/cgi/data-tool. I still haven't received anything back, but who knows. Many users report not even receiving this email, and some are having difficulties logging in to change their password to opt out of sharing data with SSENSE. It's a crapshoot. Users have also had some luck using Wayback Machine http://archive.org/web/ , searching Google Images with "yourusername + Polyvore" or searching Pinterest for "yourusername + Polyvore" or their username alone. I have found some of my work but not the hundreds and hundreds of creations I spent 9 years making. Disgruntled users are trying to find each other on Twitter or in a new Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/170182606908532/?multi_permalinks=170221000238026%2C170220396904753%2C170220373571422%2C170219476904845%2C170219383571521¬if_id=1522963613719510¬if_t=group_activity&ref=notif Feel free to sign the petition here: https://www.change.org/p/former-polyvore-users-creative-minds-bring-back-polyvore?recruiter=126902320&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial.nafta_milestone_share_ask_victory.control Above are screenshots from an anonymous source's conversation with SSENSE about the acquisition. It seems SSENSE is quick to distance themselves from any responsibility for the chaos and lost work.
Feel free to reach out to me at [email protected] if you have any more information.
7 Comments
Jill K.
4/6/2018 07:31:04 am
Thank you so much for writing this article. It feels like a death to me. I'm in utter shock. I could relate to so many of your feelings, of growing up with Polyvore, into a fulfilled artist and person. I used PV for over 7 years @sundaygray. I ran a group, participated in many contests. And I woke up today and all that work, all that community, all that *love* is just ...... gone. This may sound dumb but I don't know how I'm gonna get on with my day. Thanks again so much for bringing visibility and adding your voice with this article, Susan.
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FM3happy
4/6/2018 04:30:26 pm
I have such pain in my heart. No notice from Polyvore. Such an insult. For marketing geniuses at Ssense—-Polyvore is a place to relax, create, shop, chat, and connect with people of similar interests. I connected with peeps across the globe. With google translation I spoke French, Russian, German and Dutch. I will NOT purchase ANYTHING from Ssense! Clearly, Ssense missed the real customer hook & value in the Polyvore site. Helloooo, we can find and buy clothing from any boring fashion site. We choose Polyvore for the social aspect, the creative platform. Without that, Ssense has no advantage. And worse —- Ssense will forever be the MURDERER of Polyvore! Good luck and happy marketing! Yes, hurt and now angry and when I get to the end of my grieving phases, know I will NOT buy from your site.
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Willow (ExistentialCrisis)
4/6/2018 11:07:39 am
Polyvore was my favourite site on the internet. I joined Polyvore when I was 12 years old and have used it daily since. I feel a great sense of loss as I always turned to Polyvore as a release. I spent hours on Polyvore almost everyday and now I don't know what I'm going to do. I can relate to that feeling of growth, as I have spent 5 years building my sets and learning from other sets. The download for my sets hasn't worked for me yet, but even if it does it doesn't make up for all the draft collections and sets I had that were waiting to be 'published'. I have lost the interactions with like-minded people, the outlet for creativity, the amount of memories stored in the site, and overall just something I loved so much. It may be stupid to be this upset over a website, but the website was a community and has taught me so many things in the past 5 years and I honestly don't know what I'm going to do without it.
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summersdream
4/8/2018 08:39:54 pm
I joined polyvore in the very, very early days. I would go MIA for a bit, but I always ended up coming back, always keeping the same account. I LOVED polyvore, preferring it over Pinterest and most other sites. I loved the ability to mix fashion and art, communicate with others and connect in different communities, play in contests... it had SO MUCH going for it, and was a brilliant platform.
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Rebecca R Politzer
6/9/2018 09:13:57 pm
I have some motor skills issues making it really really hard for me to draw but I'm a writer and I need a way to the clothing and objects in my characters lives I had about 12 different characters ( .16 if you count the sets of twins for whom I made joint sets)Visual eyes tear each with at least five different outfits sometimes more. For my Hunger Games I OC( I know I know I remember when I was a teenager and it's mostly a way to explore the world) had maybe 20 given I had to create c her reaping outfit both of her interview outfits her training outfit her games outfit and all of her Victory Tour outfits. I only just found out about the closing so I have lost all of them.
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Gena
10/13/2019 12:32:36 pm
Still mourning the loss of Polyvore. Thankfully I got the chance to recover my sets as I just happened to come across a link they offered to Polyvore users to download their work. I've since made pictures of some of my art. But I have to say the biggest loss is not being able to see the work of friends I made on Polyvore. There was so really AMAZING artists on there. It's such an awful shame. I will NEVER buy anything from SSense.
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