Spotlight on: Alice Delahunt, from Burberry and Ralph Lauren to Web3 entrepreneur and disrupter

I catch up with Alice over Zoom from Syky HQ, where the stunning New York City skyline peeks through behind her. She’s preparing for a jam-packed day with a full house; her team are all on-site to welcome the newest addition to Syky leadership – Nicola Formichetti, one of fashion’s most renowned artistic directors. Alice is no stranger to being busy, having had a successful tenure as Global Director of Digital & Social at Burberry, as Chief Digital & Content Officer at Ralph Lauren, and particularly in her latest position as Founder and CEO of Syky.

“As a founder of an early-stage company, although you try to find balance, you’re inevitably always working in some way. Whether it’s at the back of your mind that something is percolating or there are exciting things happening, it’s definitely hard not to be working,” she says. Yet, even with so much going on she pleasantly indulges my small talk about her ‘outfit-of-the-day’ and being a fellow Swiftie.

Disrupting luxury fashion

Syky is Alice’s Web3 fashion start-up, which she launched in 2022 with a vision of building the “future of fashion” by incubating the next generation of great fashion houses. She sees innovation and acceleration in technology opening a door to disrupt and democratise the luxury fashion industry like never before possible. Syky’s approach is three-pronged.

Firstly, there is ‘The Syky Collective’, an incubator programme “to find who we believe are the next generation of emerging designers”. The designers are carefully selected through a blind application process focused on identifying designers for their raw talent, creativity and unique visions. “At the end of the process we had 10 designers from 10 countries who had very specific talent, and none of them are alike… each has real creativity and diverse points of view, but the one quality that they have in common is raw talent. We nurture them and mentor them and help them launch their collections,” she explains.

Then there is the Syky platform, a decentralised marketplace where designers, collectors and anyone interested can curate, display and trade their collections. Thirdly, there is the exclusive ‘Keystone Community’ which brings together designers, fashion executives, and individuals passionate about innovation in fashion. The community not only facilitates connections but also provides access to resources, mentorship and events focused on the evolving landscape of design in digital, physical and augmented realms.

When we discuss Nicola joining her team, it becomes clear that Alice’s vision with Syky isn’t just to play in digital fashion, but also to bridge the gap for physical fashion with technology. “He is as passionate as I am about supporting emerging talents, like the collective, as well as fusing with established fashion houses because that’s how everyone wins together,” she says.

If anyone understands how to fuse traditional luxury fashion with digitalisation, Alice certainly does. She’s worked at the forefront of this space since joining Burberry as a digital marketing assistant in her early 20s at a pivotal time “when social media was really becoming an important force and driver for companies”. Just six years later she would be relocating to The States, first to LA and later to NYC through her work as Chief Digital Officer and Chief Content Officer at Ralph Lauren.

For her, working at the intersection of digital and luxury fashion makes perfect sense as it blends her long-standing passions and interests in brand, creativity, fashion, digital identity, Web3 and innovation. “I think I am exactly where I’m meant to be because of following my passions, and really the core of who I am.”

The Early Era 

During her days studying at Trinity College, she was enthralled in neo-tribalism and how people find identity through brand, as well as being fascinated by the concept of virtual worlds where people were starting to build digital identities and online communities through social media. “I was interested in how people were galvanizing around community and brands and building these other digital lives… so I think what you can see is a very nascent interest in a space that is really, you know, my job today”.

 She had an entrepreneurial spirit even then and considered launching a digital publication – an idea which she’d later park to focus on her studies and build up some industry experience. “In Trinity, I thought I wanted to start a publication. I was online (in the arts block queuing with everyone else to get into the computer room to check out this newly launched thing called Facebook) and I was browsing the internet. There was no Condé Nast presence, Vanity Fair wasn’t online, and Vogue wasn’t online, so there was a real gap in the market. I did a trial run and I thought, ‘No, I’m going to focus on my finals and I still have a lot to learn in terms of marketing and brand’, so I thought I’d go into the advertising industry.”

Securing her spot on advertising giant JWT’s graduate programme, she moved to London aged 22 and worked in the industry for two years. During that period, the burgeoning digital revolution, particularly the dynamic developments in social media, drew her in. “I found myself really focusing on YouTube. Twitter had launched something called an API, Instagram had also kicked off and I just thought ‘this is too interesting not to become immersed in it professionally’.”

Fashion, another passion close to her heart, was also on her agenda, with a dream of joining Burberry, which had undergone its own iconic revolution under the leadership of Angela Ahrendts and Christopher Bailey. Following her grad programme she firmly set her sights on getting her foot in the door, landing a position as a digital marketing assistant.

“I’d heard about Angela Ahrendts and Christopher Bailey and what they were doing in Burberry and I thought I needed to figure a way to get an interview there. I managed to join as a digital marketing assistant. Fast forward seven years and I was leading the digital marketing team and social media team.”

The Corporate Era 

While leading digital and social at Burberry, Alice spearheaded ground-breaking campaigns and significantly refined her expertise in the digital domain. She orchestrated the inaugural live-streamed fashion show, collaborated on the first Snapchat show with Mario Testino and experimented with augmented reality.

“They are some of my favourite moments in my career and I think my time at Burberry was so pivotal in my understanding of the luxury industry, and also my innate interest in how digital reflects the luxury industry and democratises it. That was obviously the launch pad for then moving to Ralph Lauren and becoming the Chief Digital Officer there.”

She joined Ralph Lauren as CEO Patrice Louvet’s first hire, responsible for transforming the digital business and bringing digital marketing to the focal point of their strategy. “It was a really amazing journey. The website was our flagship store… so I had an incredible time,” she says.  Cryptocurrencies and Web3 were beginning to build some mainstream momentum, which was the encouragement Alice and her team needed to take the leap into digital fashion partnerships with Web3 platforms Zepeto and Roblox, to experiment with authentic ways to drive social commerce and connect with younger generations. This strategy culminated in the 2020 Ralph Lauren x Bitmoji collaboration, which was a major hit and would turn out to be the catalyst leading her to launch Syky.

“Ralph created a Bitmoji collection, we launched it and within a very short time tens of millions of Bitmojis, (which was the world’s largest avatar ecosystem at the time) were wearing Ralph Lauren. So to me, it said something really interesting… I could start to see through a number of verticals how the fashion industry was primed for a very radical change, in the way that creators on social media transformed the content industry… I think I recognised that there was just going to be this convergence of technologies and creators that meant digital fashion was inevitable and that physical fashion will more often than not have a digital layer.”

Just two years later, in 2022, Alice publicly launched Syky. “After being so inspired at Ralph Lauren, I really wanted to try and be on the founder side this time, but for what I think is going to be the next great transformation of the industry; and [so I wanted to] found a company that I believe has power and potential to be a huge part of the future of fashion.”

The Entrepreneurial Era – ‘The Future of Fashion’

Alice sees an opportunity to drive inclusivity in the traditionally gate-kept fashion industry through digital fashion, just as social did for the creator economy.  “If you wanted to be a photographer back in the day, you needed to work for one of the best, get an internship, live in some key cities or use relationships. Then Instagram came along, and all you needed was time, talent, a following, an iPhone and connectivity – and some of the greatest photographers of today launched their careers on Instagram. But to start a fashion house you have to have capital because you need money to invest in producing your goods, as you tend to need to be in a major city and to be able to partake in fashion weeks and so on”.

With the low-cost tech tools available today, digital designers can build collections and brands without needing major cash injection. Syky then gives them access to a marketplace to trade, earn and establish themselves. “Blockchain has the ability to pay creators or designers royalties off the products that they sell and therefore generate capital to launch into the physical world if they want to as well,” she explains.

Venture-backed female founders

Proof of concepts – like a Gucci Dionysus Bag selling for over $4,000 on Metaverse gaming platform, Roblox, or Epic revealing they made £50m on a set of ‘fortnight’ skins – has inspired entrepreneurs, designers and investors to explore just how lucrative the space could be. “If we look at what social media did for the creator economy, it’s not a far stretch to say that someone like Pet Liger (a digital on-chain shoe company that is followed by some of the biggest celebrities in the world and that is yet to launch a physical product) could be as big as the next Tom Ford.”

In January 2023, Syky closed its Series A, led by Seven Seven Six, making Alice one of the few venture-backed female founders in the Web3 space. Capital allocation in Web3 ventures is significantly skewed towards male founders and leaders – a matter that Alice is passionate about correcting. The reality is that only 10% of Metaverse-funded companies in the last five years are led by women and only 5% of funding has gone to women. “I think when you think about that disparity in capital allocation, [it means] you have to consider: Who is building? What are they building? And who are they building for? That’s a problem for me…  the intentionality behind capital allocators is incredibly important, so we do have diverse builders that are building for a diverse set of problems and use cases.”

She encourages other female, and non-binary founders trying to navigate the gender-funding gap to lean on one another: “Find your community, reach out to people who have done it and are doing it. I think you will find that female and non-binary founders are very generous with their time to those who are looking to try and raise capital.”

Diversity and inclusivity

Diversity and inclusivity are a priority for Alice across every aspect of her work, particularly when it comes to her the Syky team and designers. “For me personally, it’s really important that both the Syky team and the Syky Collective are indicative of the broader world and have diverse lived experiences and perspectives that they bring to the table. I think if you’re sitting at a table, where everyone looks, sounds and speaks the same and has the same background as you, you’re sitting at the wrong table. And honestly, it sounds like it would be a pretty mundane table.”

A line in Alice’s career is… 

“This space is forming and evolving every single month. Every month feels like years in every other career that I’ve had,” she says. Going from the world of luxury fashion to launching and guiding an early-stage tech company is a pretty big change, and the founder journey has presented its own set of new unique challenges. “A mentor once said to me, the only constant you’ll have in your life is change. And I think that is incredibly true. I think the biggest difference for me is I feel incredibly responsible for the employees who’ve come to work at Syky and for our investors… and you have to get used to the difference between running a major multimillion-dollar marketing campaign versus being scrappy where everyone wears multiple hats.

“I will say that a through line in my career is that I’ve always been doing something new that involves getting people to buy into it and having to be scrappy in order to get it done to provide the hypothesis to show that it can be successful,” she muses.

On that note, Alice stops in her tracks and makes a point to share some encouragement for anyone who may be contemplating pursuing the entrepreneurial route. “Has my day-to-day changed? Absolutely. But I love what I’m doing more than I’ve ever loved anything in terms of my career before… perhaps if I had been born in Ireland, in another era, I would have always been an entrepreneur. What I would say to others considering the entrepreneurial journey, is that if they have considered all of the impacts it will have on their lives, then absolutely go for it. The sky’s the limit.”

A ‘moment’ for mentorship  

During our interview, the topic of mentorship comes up time and time again and the importance Alice places on learning from exceptional leaders is clear. She speaks fondly of the many leaders and mentors she encountered during her time at the fashion houses. The leaders at Burberry had created an environment of enthusiasm for digitalisation which allowed her to find her sweet spot in “really understanding social media and how it could democratise access to traditional luxury brands”.

“So many remarkable leaders worked at Christopher Bailey’s Burberry, [people whom] I got to learn from, such as Sarah Manley and Angela Ahrendts who was really integral too, she really had the vision to bring digital into the fashion industry. Even being in a culture that she cultivated was so phenomenal.”

Alice later credits the greats at Ralph Lauren for the important role they played in her journey too. “Getting to learn directly from Ralph, one of the most incredible entrepreneurs that has existed in America, if not the world, who has built worlds that reflect his interests and desires and created one of the most iconic brands that exists was incredible, as well as from Patrice Louvet, who was a phenomenal CEO”. Reflecting fondly on both of these “incredible journeys” she acknowledges how it inevitably primed her to take the plunge and found Syky “after years of having the privilege to learn from one of the best entrepreneurs in the world, incredible executives, and CEOs”. Now, as a founder, she acknowledges how lucky she is to receive mentorship and guidance from her board and the team at ‘Seven Seven Six’.

I ask Alice what would be her top piece of advice to any reader. “No dream is too small. I say that to everyone. Be proud of who you are – the more authentically you live and show up, the more happiness and the more people you will attract and I mean that in ways of relationships, friendships, work, collaborators, partnerships. There’s nothing more powerful than being your truest version of yourself.”

Career highlights

When I ask her about the highlight of her career so far, a couple of moments spring to mind. They are not linked to the major global campaigns she has spearheaded, launching Syky or raising Series A. The first is ringing the bell in the New York Stock Exchange with the Ralph Lauren team. “I was on the podium, which was such an incredible experience. Not once but twice, which was such an honour, for Ralph’s 50th anniversary and for Pride with the Ralph Lauren LGBTQI community.”

“Then the other ‘pinch me’ moment was introducing the [emerging designers that makeup] Syky Collective at London Fashion Week (pictured above, with KWK by Kay Kwok designs) with the British Fashion Council. Seeing these new designers from all over the world coming together in London and getting their work shown was truly phenomenal.”

Apple Vision Pro

Although Alice won’t try to predict when the tipping point to mass adoption of Web3 will happen, she hazards a guess that the release of the Apple Vision Pro headset earlier this year will be the beginning. “The ubiquity is coming pretty quickly but no one can tell you when. It depends on your generation – if you’re Gen Z then for you digital fashion is already here… I think we’re going to see a 10-year cycle that will specifically kick off as the first generation of the Vision Pro launches. The first iPhone didn’t have a front-facing camera or an App Store.

“Think about what was launched off the App Store: Instagram, Snapchat, Vsco and ‘selfies’ didn’t exist before front-facing cameras. So I think with the launch of the Vision Pro and as Meta and Ray-Ban continue to improve their smart glasses, more and more and more of this will become ubiquitous.”

NFT Paris

This year is set to be an exciting one for Alice and the Syky team. Already in February, Syky Collective designers dropped debut collections on Syky.com, introducing luxury fashion to the Polygon ecosystem during NFT Paris. An event at L’espace Réaumur showed capsule collections from digital fashion designer Stephy Fung and mixed-reality fashion house Nextberries, spotlighting global streetwear culture and its convergence in digital realms. The announcement of Syky’s integration with Polygon PoS, which allows users to purchase garments through digital currencies, adds a further level of accessibility as it continues to cement its position as a leading innovative fashion platform.

Speaking to me, Alice shares that she has exciting plans on the horizon, details of which she can’t divulge but she says: “We’ve got a big year ahead, more to come”. I for one can’t wait to watch it unfold.