INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Wardrobe, a new peer-to-peer fashion rental marketplace, has today announced the close of a $1.5 million seed round and its public launch
out of beta.The funding was led by angel investor Cyan Banister and Ludlow Ventures, with participation from GroundUp Ventures, Airbnb
co-founder Nate Blecharczyk and HQ Trivia founder Rus Yusupov, among others.Wardrobe was founded by Adarsh Alphons after he had an epiphany
about just how many items of clothes in his own house went mostly unused
In fact, The WSJ suggests that most people only wear around 20% of their wardrobe on a regular basis
is a peer-to-peer rental marketplace for vintage, designer and luxury brand clothing
However, unlike Rent the Runway or other sharing economy fashion platforms, Wardrobe uses dry cleaners as hubs for the inventory
This not only allows the company to scale more quickly from geography to geography, but also to remain lean without taking on the risk of
out a few answers to questions and receive a shipping label in the mail
handles everything from storage to shipping to photographing the pieces for the app.The owner of the clothes makes between 70 and 75% of the
rental cost after the cost of dry cleaning.Interestingly, Alphons learned in beta that users want to not only browse the app for clothes,
but follow specific users and closets that they particularly like
influencers to the platform.Wardrobe currently has partnerships with more than 40 Manhattan dry cleaners, serving all of the island below
Alphons says that each dry cleaner can hold between 100 and 1,000 items of clothing at a time.
