The OPSH Interview

September 26, 2014 – People

Could you tell us a little bit about yourselves?

We are Jennie, Sarah and Grace Mc Ginn – sisters and co-workers at Opsh, A New Way to Shop!

How did you gals get started with Opsh? It’s a pretty solid concept where did you get your inspiration from?

Opsh is an amalgamation of our two previous venture – our Fashion and Lifestyle site What Will I Wear Today?, which we ran for four years from 2009. This led us onto Prowlster, an online shoppable magazine looking at and selling Ireland’s finest talent in art, music, culture and fashion. Whilst doing Prowlster we realised that online shopping wasn’t as simple or enjoyable as it was supposed to be, and after many many late night discussions and spider diagrams the idea for Opsh was born. We like to say that this is a product FOR online shoppers built BY online shoppers – we are the end consumer of our product, which offers us a unique insight into this industry.

What kind of backgrounds do you come from? What is your previous experience with the fashion industry?

Its funny, none of us have a professional background in Fashion, or business for that matter. What we know now has been self-thought or advice given to us from our wonderful mentors and advisors over the past 6 years that we have been working together. Jennie’s background is Communications and Marketing, and she has worked in various industries from the arts to the charity sectors. Myself (Sarah) has a background in Broadcast Journalism, Media and PR/Sales, and Grace’s background is Architecture and Graphic Design.  We began What Will I Wear Today because of a love of fashion and content creation, we were the “Insider-Outsiders” on the fashion scene, and I think this refreshing outlook on all things fashion related really struck a chord with our audience. So I suppose our foray into fashion was for the love of it, and a chance encounter with Kelly Cutrone at NY fashion week…)

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You guys are all about fashion, is there anything in the fashion world that’s really exciting you at the moment.

Well we’re heading back into A/W style – collectively the favourite dressing season for all Mc Ginn sisters, so we are INCREDIBLY excited for some layering shopping to begin.

In the Fashion world, we are all in awe of Irish Fashion designer Danielle Romeril, the leather, the lace, the detailing, just FABULOUS.

Are you ladies working on any interesting collaborations or side projects at the moment?

Well we’ve just released our #FearlessFour Ezine with Ireland’s top four Bloggers and Business Women – Leanne Woodful, Anouska Proetta Brandon, Erika Fox and Tara Marzuki. We wanted to celebrate the fact that these four women were entrepreneurial young business women and not just flippant fashionista’s, #GirlBosses! We felt that sometimes Fashion Bloggers don’t get the credit they deserve for all the hard work that goes into doing their job. The wonderful Alex Sheridan did the photography, and we are so unbelievably happy with how it all turned out.

In the same theme, we have an event happening 7th October, #GirlBoss – the rise of the female CEO (we love celebrating a good success story!). A book club and panel discussion about Sophie Amurusos #GirlBoss life and book. You can get tickets here

For Opsh we don’t want to be this faceless online company, so collaborations and events are very important to us. Reaching out to people, collaborating with talented people and chatting with our potential customers is what Opsh is about. So yes there will be PLENTY coming up in the next few months so keep an eye out on the Opsh site and magazine for info!

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What do you gals get up to when your not OPSH’ing?

Catch up on SLEEP!! It’s actually quite hard to switch off from Opsh’ing. It’s not a 9-5 role, more of a Eat, Sleep, Werk, Repeat role, as so many people who are trying to do it for themselves know. More and more you try to make your free time about creating a healthy body, healthy mind lifestyle – you don’t want to end up burning out. We should start having mandatory Opsh Meditation time : )

Where is your favourite secret shopping spot in Dublin?

Dublin is home to so many great shopping gems. Some of our favourites include Om Diva, a treasure trove of Irish Designers and some of the most amazing jewellery you’ll find in the Capital. Bow Boutique in the Powerscourt has so many beautiful pieces – fashion wise and home wise. But really just taking a walk through the city centre and you’ll happen upon so many great shops and boutiques.

Any guilty pleasure you’d feel comfortable sharing with us?

So everyone thinks working in Fashion is so very glamourous. But if by chance you were to walk into the family home when we were all there, you would be greeted by a sea of Adidas trackies, top-knots and make-up free faces. It’s the ultimate Mc Ginn guilty pleasure.

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Any tips on DIY fashion?

Erm, Mammy Mc Ginn is great with a needle and thread?! We’re not the best with DIY fashion, but our in-house stylist, Justine King, knows all there is to know about it! So our tip would be get in touch with Justine.

What are the plans for the future…bigger better bolder? 

We have so many plans for Opsh – for now we want to get it up and running! We have tons of ideas to help making the online shopping experience faster, easier and more enjoyable for the customer. You’ll have to sign up to find out what though : ) We also love a bit of feedback here at Opsh HQ, so if there’s something you feel should be heard you can get in touch with Niamh, our community manager, at niamh@opsh.com

We really feel that Opsh is the next thing in online shopping but we definitely need help to get there, so if your friend, your sister, your neighbour, your Mother, the women in line beside you at tesco, loves shopping spread the Opsh word, we’d really appreciate it!

Words: Hunt & Gather