Grade A Entrepreneurs

Stylish tech is a big deal. Check out the September Business Week phone slideshow culminating with the Christian Dior/ModeLabs and Ferrari/Vertu (Nokia) models: (http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/09/0903_designer_phones/1.htm). Wow!

Today, we primarily find high-tech commodities endorsed by brands that have been vetted within the fashion industry. It is less customary to see high-tech entrepreneurs directly venture into fashion statements and follow in the footsteps of the powerful trend initiated by Steve Jobs.

I have come across a few initiatives recently, and one of the most interesting ones I have seen is LA YIN, a Swedish startup created by Ying Cheng. Ying is a Chinese woman who studied computer sciences at Nanjing University, then in Nancy, France, and earned her Ph.D. from Laval University, Quebec City. After five years at Nortel networks in the US and Canada as a research scientist in speech recognition and language understanding for directory systems and four years at Motorola Sydney Australia as the lab manager for multi-model user interface technologies, Ying decided to pursue her passion: high tech for women, by women. “Clothes, glasses, purses, jewelry… in short, lots of items that women use everyday, are gender specific,” she says. “Why should high-tech goods be gender agnostic, almost always style-less and so conspicuously disconnected from all the other accessories that contribute to define our personal style?” Ying has a point. Notebook sleeves, packaging for USB flash drives, and leather straps are now part of our daily guise, just as much as purses and make-up kits! LA YIN is an attractive offering (and a great idea for presents!), a unique combination of Chinese and European touch. Lovely and affordable.LA YIN has an interesting distribution channel: Swedish Apple resellers and soon another famous and trendy Nordic store. Of special note, the company has passed the stringent elegance tests of two major museum shops in Stockholm. You may also buy online. http://www.la-yin.com/collection.html

The Gabrielle set. Gabrielle was Chanel’s first name. “She is my role model,” Ying says. The Little black dress was beautifully simple and she invented modern accessories.”