These Women-Led Startups Are Making Pre-Owned Luxe Goods The It Thing Here are a few startups led by women who are allowing ladies to share their pre-loved items with their friends and family circle through internet.

There has always been offline behaviour of sharing pre-loved items amongst women. With surge in internet and smartphone penetration, technology provides a huge platform to replicate this behaviour online in a much more holistic manner.

Some women with entrepreneurial bent of mind saw this as a business opportunity and started their own venture. Here are a few startups led by women who are allowing ladies to share their pre-loved items with their friends and family circle through internet.

1. Allowing fashionista to cash their closet

Founded in March 2015 by IIT Kharagpur alumni Anandita Singh, Manisha Barnwal and Saahil Narang (ex-Bain & Co.), Envoged is a re-commerce platform that allow owners of luxury goods like handbags, footwear and accessories to easily sell items they no longer need.

"Everyday we opened our closets, all that we saw was a pile of clothes, shoes and handbags that were just lying there. Many of them bought impulsively or not the perfect fit or we just never felt like wearing after we bought them. There was always this wish to buy luxury fashion wear, but the guilt of an already over flooded wardrobe stopped us to buy more. We realized every other girl in the country faces this guilt. And thus the idea of Envoged, a social platform to shop and sell pre-loved luxury fashion. We started working and researching on this idea in December 2014 and finally launched on 23rd March 2015," said Anandita Singh, Co-founder, Envoged.

2. An Instagram for women's fashion attire

Founded in May 2015 by Rashi Menda, Zapyle is like an Instagram for women's fashion attire, which allows its customers to discover, sell and buy pre-owned fashion attire. Prior to launching her startup, Menda used to work with EY (Ernst and Young), which is a multinational professional services firm headquartered in London.

"Two years ago, I'd look at my own closet with an assorted collection of unopened, unworn shopping bags sitting on the floor – and still find myself saying, "I have nothing to wear!' Just like me – millions of Indian women stock their closets with stuff worth over one billion dollars every year and still have nothing to wear. Nearly a third of their closet is never worn and another third is worn once or twice at the most. I wanted to change that. I wanted to create a platform that assists pre-loved clothes and accessories in finding new homes in new wardrobes, so nobody will ever have the problem of feeling like they have nothing to wear, and have fun while at we're it! And thus, Zapyle was born," opines Menda.

3 Fitting perfectly in ever empty mould

Current market is replete with e-commerce companies and shopping malls, where the former offers cheap casual fashion and the latter offers expensive occasion wear, but a classic occasion wear available at economical price is nowhere in sight. Blinge aims to bridge this gap between affordability and aspiration existing in the fashion market thus, solving inefficiency and optimizing the processes.

Being an on-demand premium fashion rental platform and application, Blinge provides designer wear, branded outfits and elegant accessories on rent to the young folks who are willing to experience the vast array of fashionable goods.

Founded by Pooja, Shashwat and Shikhar, Startup fits perfectly in that ever empty mould. "We house premium brands like Zara, DKNY, Ritu Kumar etc. The aim of our portal is to educate the user as we knew that the consumer will be a little skeptical to opt for renting an outfit," said Pooja Dubey, Co-founder, Blinge.

Conclusion

Since sharing economy in fashion has just started stirring up in India, these startups are competing with each other to tap the multi-billion dollar market opportunity in India. Now we have to see that how far they will go in terms of gaining customers loyalty in this traditional world.