Vivy Yusof’s Rise In The Fashion Industry

Vivy Yusof is a well-known Southeast Asian fashion celebrity. A lawyer by profession, Datin Yusof discovered her passion for fashion early in life. Her name is well-known in the fashion industry, with her multi-million dollar flagship business brands, FashionValet and the dUCk group commanding a great following, with well over 1.8 million followers on Instagram. A highly successful individual, Datin Yusof has won several awards and achievements, and has been featured in several fashion magazines. In addition, Forbes Asia named Datin Yusof as one of their 30 Under 30 honorees in 2017. In many ways, Datin Yusof has showcased her exceptional talents as a corporate highflier while juggling her duties at home as a wife and mother of four children.

Vivy Yusof co-founded FashionValet and The dUCk Group. Like most entrepreneurs, Datin Yusof built her first e-commerce business as she was trying to solve a problem she had encountered. She also shared about her terrible online shopping experience she once had. This prompted her to start her first basic online store, FashionValet. In an interview with Empirics Asia, Datin Yusof and her husband shared with the interviewer the process in which they had to convince 10 brands to create product catalogues of their own on her e-commerce site to kickstart the business.

FashionValet was the first e-commerce site where Asia’s leading fashion labels marketed their range of products. Following a series of changes, FashionValet now operates as a direct-to-consumer (D2C) business serving customers worldwide. Since its inception in 2010, FashionValet has continued to set the pace in the Asian modest fashion space.

Vivy Yusof and her husband Fadza Anuar, established FashionValet with RM100,000 as capital. Being an e-commerce platform, FashionValet benefited from the use of digital marketing. Datin Yusof used her Instagram and blog to market her business. In 2012, she took home first honours in the second edition of MYEG’s Make The Pitch contest, this win gave the company additional exposure, helping it reach out to an even wider market.

The dUCk Group combines several aspects of fashion into one. What started as a brand selling Muslim scarfs has now transitioned into a lifestyle brand. In her own words, Vivy Yusof defines dUCk’s products as fun and expressive. You can find bags, accessories, ready-to-wear, home and living, as well as beauty care products in all of dUCk’s stores. 

LILIT is a retail store for various types of women’s fashion wear. These products are designed in-house and sold locally in Malaysia. They can also be purchased online and can be shipped worldwide. LILIT's fashion range includes modest swimwear, activewear, innerwear, and accessories, all of which are equally trendy and modest.

How Vivy Yusof created her brand persona

Before establishing FashionValet, Vivy Yusof had already established herself as a fashion icon through Instagram and her blog. Her compelling content attracted many fans; primarily women in the 20-40 age group. Since most of these women follow her for fashion inspiration, converting them into customers was a relatively seamless process.

Datin Yusof’s success in the business world has significantly boosted her personal branding. Apart from engaging with her massive following on Instagram, Datin Yusof starred in a reality TV show titled Love. The show revolved around her life as a daughter, wife, mother, and entrepreneur. This provided her with another opportunity to gain additional traction for her business.

Another social media strategy Vivy Yusof used was leveraging Instagram’s user-generated content. She created two trendy hashtags to share outfits of the day (OOTD) and travel lifestyle content. This was done wearing products from dUCk. The hashtags created were #fvootd and #ducktravels. Being a novel and fun fashion idea, it became viral, with most of her followers using these hashtags on their own social media accounts, and in the process they turned into Datin Yusof’s brand ambassadors. 

The ability to help grow businesses through the use of social media has helped many Muslim entrepreneurs, as they took advantage of the opportunities to showcase their products and culture on a global platform.