Ask FrankKnowledge runs deepest today in Indian leather, with FDRA
One email. Global supply.
Frank is an AI research assistant for fashion and footwear sourcing. Ask him a sourcing question by email. He searches what's known, writes to suppliers for what's missing, and comes back with a sourced answer. Suppliers write to him too.
Free. No login, no onboarding, nothing to adopt. Write in your own language and attach whatever you already have. And if he doesn't know, he keeps looking and reports back when he finds what you asked.
Frank will never pass your contact information to a supplier unless you ask him to.
What Frank knows, and what he knows deeply.
Every supplier Frank can talk about sits somewhere between the two. You can ask about either. The difference is how much is already confirmed when you ask, and how quickly the gaps close.
Know
Frank has a record on the supplier, built from what they have declared and the documents on file. He can answer, shows how each claim is supported and when it was last checked, and says plainly what is still unknown.
When your question needs more, he writes to the supplier. Expect a sourced answer with the gaps listed, then updates as replies come in.
Mostly declared and documented evidence.
Deep
The whole cluster is connected. Suppliers already work with Frank directly, evidence is checked at source, and records are kept current: certificates tracked to expiry, capacity refreshed before it goes stale.
Most questions are answered on the spot. When a gap does appear, suppliers reply fast because they are already in the loop.
Largely confirmed and verified evidence.
Know becomes deep, question by question. Today, deep means Indian leather. Other regions and materials are moving the same way, and this page will change as they do. Whatever Frank tells you about a supplier, he shows which of the two you are getting.
Where Frank knows, and where he knows deeply.
The key sourcing countries for each category today. Choose a category, then a country, to see what Frank can tell you about it. This changes quickly as more areas go deep.
Deepest today in Indian leather, with FDRA.
Frank's deepest knowledge today is India's leather footwear supply, built with FDRA, the trade association for the U.S. footwear industry. That means 300+ suppliers: tanneries, leather component makers and the Tier 1 factories they supply, with every answer sourced, tiered and dated.
For FDRA's member brands, and anyone sourcing from India, questions about capability, certification, capacity and traceability are mostly answered straight away. Where the evidence still has gaps, Frank writes to the suppliers and closes them.
Other categories and countries are moving the same way, quickly.
“Frank gives the industry a single research assistant across a fragmented supply base. Brands can ask real questions about suppliers, materials, capabilities, standards and traceability. Frank identifies the gaps automatically, goes back to any tier of the supply chain for what's missing, and continuously builds a better picture of global supply.”
In production today. Closed supplier networks are running inside a multi-billion-dollar U.S. footwear brand and a major European fashion group, across footwear components, denim and textiles.
Don't evaluate Frank. Ask him something.
Brand to Frank
Sourcing, design and development, merchandising and planning, sustainability and compliance: different desks, one address. Most of these need dozens of suppliers checked at once, and Frank writes to all of them in parallel.
- Design and developmentMaterial innovationWho runs chrome-free or bio-based tanning at production volume, not who is piloting it.
- SourcingCapacity, confirmedTier 1 assembly with small-batch runs open before October, checked with each factory, not inferred.
- Merchandising and planningCan the range be madeThis assortment, at this price, at this volume, in this window, and where it breaks if it can't.
- Compliance and sustainabilityYour whole base at onceWhich approved suppliers hold current evidence, which lapsed, which never had it.
- Sourcing and riskDual-sourcingIf 30% moves out of one country, who absorbs it: capacity, tooling, lead time, landed cost, every claim sourced and dated.
- Product data and compliancePLM and DPPCollect and structure supplier and material data at any tier, ready for product workflows and Digital Product Passport requirements.
Supplier to Frank
For Tier 1 factories and the tanneries and mills behind them. The difference between being shortlisted and being skipped can be one missing certificate.
- Understand the briefDecode what a brand is asking for, mapped to what you actually make.
- Get brand-readySee what you already satisfy, what is missing, and what to fix to stay in consideration.
- Demand matchingLive brand demand matched to your capability and your open runs.
- Your own sourcingTier 1s ask Frank too: materials, components, the tanneries and mills behind your production.
That's a complete first email to frank@askfrank.com. Frank structures it, checks the certificates at source, and tells you what's missing. One email, once.
When Frank doesn't know, he finds out.
He isn't omniscient. When an answer has a hole in it, he says so, then closes it with the supplier, in the same medium everything else happens.
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“Chrome-free Tier 2 tanneries in Tamil Nadu, current LWG rating, 50,000 sq ft monthly, sampling in four weeks.”
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“Six match on current evidence, attached, each claim tiered and dated. Nine more fit on capability but hold no current LWG status on file. I've written to all nine this morning.”
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“Your capability matches a current brand request, but we don't have a current LWG certificate on file. Reply with the latest one and Frank can include your verified status.”
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“Attached. Gold, renewed in March.”
LWG_Certificate_2026.pdf -
“Seven of the nine replied overnight. Checked against the issuer: thirteen tanneries now, each addition dated and on file. Two didn't respond, listed as unconfirmed, not dropped.”
The gap closes once, and stays closed. That certificate is now part of the answer for every brand that asks after. It works the same way for a question nobody has asked before: a new material, a new regulation, a new region. Frank doesn't need the map to exist before you ask. Asking is how it gets built.
Sourcing is where he starts.
The same loop that finds a supplier also builds a product. Frank works the development side of the brief, and he learns new work the way he learns new suppliers: once, then permanently.
Product creation
From a sketch, a concept or a tech pack, through to a costed, sourceable specification.
- Tech packs, read as written, ambiguity flagged before it costs a season
- Bills of materials, every line sourced, with alternates and lead times
- Material substitution, a restricted or discontinued material replaced with a compliant equivalent
- Trims and components, the long tail nobody has hours for
- Sampling and costing, who can sample in four weeks, and roughly what it lands at
Whatever shape you need it in
The answer isn't always a list of suppliers. Ask for the form, not just the question.
- Dossiers: a supplier, material, category, country or risk, assembled from current evidence with the gaps shown
- Dashboards: a live question turned into a decision view: coverage, readiness, capacity, risk
- Scorecards: your own criteria, applied consistently across a base
- Reports: every reply consolidated into one document, whatever language it arrived in
Teach him a new one
A skill is just work he's been shown how to do. Describe it once in an email and it becomes repeatable, and each desk ends up with its own set.
- A new standard: your own onboarding criteria, applied to every candidate from then on
- A new regulation: the evidence it demands, gathered at whatever tier holds it
- A new format: the report your team actually reads, rebuilt on request
- A new region or material: no corridor needs to exist before you ask
Skills compound. Every new one Frank learns can be pointed at every supplier he already knows, which is why the work he can do gets wider the longer he runs, without anyone building a new product.
One knowledge layer. Two very different rooms.
Open: the industry
Ask about the industry
Not a marketplace. Nothing is listed, nothing is bid on. Frank connects the industry's data cluster by cluster, so a whole region becomes answerable rather than one factory at a time. Indian leather is the deepest so far. Every relevant supplier can appear, paying or not.
Suppliers can hire Frank to keep their record answer-ready. It never changes whether or where they appear.
Free. Ask by email.
Closed: yours
Ask about your supply chain
Same Frank, same loop, pointed at your approved suppliers, your documents, your standards, with your authority. Live in minutes: it's email, there's nothing to implement. Built with Microsoft on Azure. Your data never enters the open network and is never used to train an LLM.
- Network diagnosticYour whole base against current evidence, expiries chased before they lapse.
- Brief executionTech packs qualified, routed, replies consolidated into one report.
- Supplier prospectingFrank approaches and qualifies new suppliers without revealing your brand.
- Institutional memoryEvery brief, quote and decision kept, through staff turnover.
Paid private deployment.
Five things Frank will not do.
- Let payment touch the results.Money never buys inclusion, ranking, recommendation or an introduction.
- Share your contact details.Frank never passes your contact information to a supplier unless you ask him to.
- Carry anything across your walls.Private brand information never enters the open network and is never used to train an LLM.
- Call self-declared data verified.Every claim is tiered, dated, and the tier is shown.
- Guess.Where he's uncertain he says so, and goes and closes the gap.