Our Company

Welcome to zafu. If you've ever sat bemused looking at thousands of jeans or bras listed on a search engine, or carried a pile of jeans or bras into a changing room and left the store empty, you've come to the right place. We've had those struggles and realized we could do something about it.

We are a small team located in a converted bakery in Emeryville, California, just across the Bay from San Francisco. We have drawn on years of experience in the areas of fit research and algorithm development, then measured, assessed and photographed thousands of women trying on hundreds of pairs of different jeans and bras.

Why is this important? At zafu, our mathematical calculations, product databases and body shape libraries enable us to ask a woman a few simple questions and use her answers to recommend clothes that will fit her best. There is real science behind the art of simplicity.

We have been working in apparel helping people with fit for many years. zafu is a venture backed company and launched our service designed to help women find the perfect pair of jeans or the ideal bra.

Our Team

How often have you read bios of people at companies and seen endless stale facts and chest beating but rarely gained much real understanding about what the person is really like? We have a small group of awesome people who all want to achieve great things. We believe in what we are doing and hope we will make a difference. Most of the time we like to work together and we do have fun. Here's the low down.

Angelique Augereau
Extreme Angelique is literally that. Whether it's trying to get her Mini Cooper S to run faster than her Yamaha R6 racing bike, climbing Mount Fuji in the winter or simply being cursed with the world’s inability to cope with spelling her 11 vowel name – count ‘em! Angelique runs zafu during the day and our consulting business at night. In her "spare time" you can see her hurtling round the Bay Area on her road bike, climbing rock faces in Yosemite or hiking. Did we say extreme? Before joining us she put her Economics PhD to good use, solving world crises with the McKinsey Global Institute working in India and Japan. Business trips are dedicated to "helping" us appreciate good food. Most people choose one restaurant, not Angelique. We move from one dining locale to another, one dish or drink at a time with each one being declared "not quite there yet". Michelin and Zagat, eat your heart out! And jeans? She wears Seven and Joe’s Jeans – all one size too big according to Blair!

Blair Newel
Blair is our fit goddess. She amazes people when she takes one look at a person and can tell them exactly what they should wear and it works. Before she joined us she spent many years at the Gap and Old Navy leading technical product development and studying fit issues. With her team she’s then measured, interviewed and photographed literally thousands of women in hundreds of jeans. She defines the word expert. Why Blasé Blair? No problem or challenge is left unfinished with Blair. If it takes all night and all weekend she’ll find out why women with certain seat shapes have issues with some jeans. She is a jewel. She’s the second member of our Prius drag racing team, because she also cares. Amazingly, Blair was a psychology major from UCSC but decided to work with her hands rather than on people’s minds. And what are her favorite jeans? Paige.

Rob Holloway
Rob is our Englishman abroad and thinks he's running the show. Between the investors and our team we know that's not true! He’s the best at getting us to see what can be achieved and with so little. He’s our sort of "industry veteran guy" though he says he hates being called that. He’s also our external voice leading our sales, business development and funding efforts. Jeans are in his blood and why not? Before he founded the company in 2000 he ran the Levi’s brand in the US (ssshhh - big serious job) and spent years running marketing and merchandising for Levi’s all over the world - and yes he still loves and can talk endlessly about unwashed antique 501’s. Rob is our resident movie critic and obsessive photographer. It seems there really is no movie he has not seen.