Meet ready dress go: Professional attire for young women, created by young women
by Camille Shen
While most college juniors find themselves under a barrage of interviews, calls, and networking events in hopes of landing their first job at a company, Vanderbilt students Jess Kaplan (‘22) and Zoe Antell (‘22) are already in the midst of starting their own. Ready dress go (RDG), a clothing company for young women created by young women, aims to bring comfort, practicality, and style to female professionals.
Zoe Antell, co-founder (‘22)
Jess Kaplan, co-founder (‘22)
The idea for ready dress go was originally born out of the pair feeling uncomfortable and without options in their own professional wardrobes during freshman year networking events. “It really came from us being in Delta Sigma Pi, [a business fraternity on campus],” Kaplan explained. “All of these events required us to put on blazers and business clothes and it was our least favorite part of going...we were always complaining to each other that we had to wear the same thing over and over again because there was only one thing that we liked.” On a walk back to Commons from one of these events, the two realized that this was a unique problem for young professional women and sought to fix it.
Having begun with a background in business rather than in fashion, Antell and Kaplan had to overcome a number of obstacles in understanding the intricacies of the industry. During the fabric sourcing process, Antell recalled that though they initially believed that they could undertake the task themselves, they quickly realized that better prospects laid with hiring a fabric consultant— an expert in guiding the pair in the right direction and ultimately playing a vital role in finding the perfect textiles for the RDG blazer and pants. These challenges, however, as Antell noted, have “made [them] into better businesswomen and entrepreneurs”. Kaplan added that the two of them are continuing to learn in every meeting with industry professionals— such as understanding the difference between technical terms like “bound seam” and “blind stitch”— and ultimately seek to gain new insight into the fashion and apparel space with every conversation.
As a clothing brand, ready dress go is one of the only companies that provides apparel targeted specifically toward young professional women. “I can go to Ann Taylor and pick out the youngest-looking pants there, but their entire offering isn’t made for me— and that’s what ready dress go is doing that other brands aren’t,” Antell pointed out. Moreover, RDG makes sure to always account for the needs and priorities of its consumer base— young, career-minded women— when developing and designing new pieces. At the forefront of RDG’s clothing philosophy is comfort, convenience, and of course, style— high-quality, on-trend pieces that consumers can count on to still look professional and workplace appropriate.
Being a new player in a sector dominated by labels like Ann Taylor and Banana Republic is certainly no easy feat— but part of ready dress go’s unique draw is their brand’s departure from the traditional apparel business model. “In addition to just being a clothing brand, we also have our own platform and our own original content, so once you make a purchase from us, you have the opportunity to do what we call ‘Join the Boardroom’”, Antell explained. By joining the Boardroom, customers will gain exclusive access to professional tips, newsletters, and RDG promotions, with the intent to eventually scale these benefits to include in-person events. Unlike a simple transaction at your local Ann Taylor retailer in the mall, Antell expressed that RDG “[doesn’t] want to just hand [their] customers clothes” without follow-up; rather, the aim for RDG is to “serve as a community and platform for young women who are starting their careers, share advice and feedback”, to eventually grow as a content and thought leader while also occupying a space in the fashion world.
Another aspect of RDG’s business model that distinguishes themselves from other professional attire giants is their commitment to ethical and sustainable production, an ever-growing trend in the fashion and textiles industry. In their manufacturing process, RDG has partnered with a female-run company based in Nashville, Tennessee in an effort to commit to fair worker wages, with a special focus on empowering and uplifting women. Unlike many companies’ fast fashion practices (lack of transparency in sourcing/consumption of raw materials, unsafe working conditions, unlivable wages), Kaplan notes that from the beginning, RDG’s had sustainability in mind: “It was really important for us that the clothes that we were making were enabling more women and weren’t being made in third world countries by women in sweatshops. We wanted to do this in a way that was focused about women, from start to finish.”
Despite ready dress go’s business-savvy model and all of its successes as a young company, like all entrepreneurs getting their start, Antell and Kaplan have encountered numerous challenges on the business side of their endeavor. “We have seen how being females and creating a very female-centered brand has sometimes been a bit of a barrier, in terms of pitch competitions,” Antell admitted. “A lot of people who are judges are people who are in [venture capital] and are investors, [making it] a very male-dominated space. So there have been times where we feel like our mission and our business as a whole isn’t received as much because they don’t see the challenges that women face when dressing professionally. Men can put on any suit and be professional, and women don’t have that luxury.”
In the face of challenges like these and more, Kaplan and Antell have found a support system in a network of entrepreneurial women and plan to expand their business in both the short and long term. For now, the two juniors are looking to expand their product offering to include more pieces, with a new line of products coming to the ready dress go collection very soon. As for the future, Kaplan and Antell strive to put RDG on college campuses across the country as part of a college ambassador marketing program, directly engaging with young women to promote the brand, host local events, and expand RDG’s reach to be nationwide.
“This started as a little bit of a side passion or side hustle but as time has gone on, we’ve gained more traction and our official launch this past February really propelled us forward. We have huge plans for how we want to continue this on to our senior year and beyond,” said Kaplan. “I love fashion, it’s always been a big part of my life, but I never knew what would come of that— I never thought I’d be sitting here, two years later, talking about clothing that my brand name is on.”
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