The tricky aspect of exclusive, hard-to-get items is that they’re exclusive and hard to get, which is exactly how Gab Waller has carved out a corner of Instagram for herself to become the app’s luxury sourcing maestro to the stars.
The Australia native was spending time in Los Angeles and increasingly noticing items that she knew they wouldn’t receive back in Sydney. This sparked the thought that — though personal shopping and styling as concepts are nothing groundbreaking — perhaps she could iterate on the traditional conceit by sourcing pieces unavailable in someone’s home market — and for a new, digital-first audience.
Returning home, the fashion enthusiast — but by no means professional (“I definitely wasn’t known within the fashion industry down here in Australia,” she notes) — catalyzed her business by cold direct messaging potential clients on Instagram, pitching the idea of delivering them items that they were seeing across the internet but had no access to Down Under, and crossing her fingers. “I really just had to prove myself to them in those early days, because I was just this random girl.”
Officially launching her business via the @gabwallerdotcom Instagram account in June 2018 wasn’t without its challenges. “I was getting
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