Even their wedding had to be crammed into their schedules. Whenever taking the dress hire agency concept from lofty street to internet was a challenge that appealed to Anna Bance, with her strong background in fashion PR and her desire to democratise fashion.
Girl Meets Dress helps anyone to hire an attractive designer piece for a retail fraction price -making an universally available online wardrobe of 4000 dresses for each peculiar occasion.
In 2009, with ‘cofounder’ Xavier de Lecaros Aquise, she set up Girl Meets Dress, now UK’s largest and most successful online luxury dress rental destination. 2 founders set their company up from scratch and it was entirely self funded until summer 2013.
It was usually an extremely offline business, dress concept hire is not a modern one, there been robust amount of agencies on the King’s Road in London and some still exist.
It’s quite easy.
We were first to go online and we’re largest. You may choose to have dresses for an allocated rental period of 3 nights or 8 nights, you could see when the dress is planning to arrive, and when you have to post it back. That’s where it starts getting practically entertaining, right? You will as well choose the advance ‘tryon’.
While searching by size or shop occasion, you will browse our dresses merely as you will in any next by, by colour.
It was pretty obvious how we should divide up what we needed to do, my business partner Xavier de ‘Lecaros Aquise’ previously led the UK digital media for an investment bank, he’s really techy.
My background has always been in fashion so it was pretty obvious to me to set up a business in fashion, an industry they see about. On p of that, everyone practically feels good about getting. So this turned out to be famous and similar people started asking about taking dresses. Sounds familiar? s and we lent dresses to journalists, magazines and in addition celebrities, we was in fashion PR at Hermè. Trends come and go and you will save our own money for classic pieces but not spending it on a ballgown that apparently end up at wardrobe back after its first wear, You don’t have to commit and spend a bunch of money on something you most likely wear just once.
For a ‘ebusiness’ there’s a lot to do with website back end and payment processing, Xavier built website and did all things online side.
Between us we managed to cover everything -we didn’t need to hire a vast team right at first pace.
Whenever getting the designers on board and sorting out PR, I was looking after the dresses. It’s big to have Global Founders Capital in team and be able to use their experience and knowledge of retail. However, reason Part we chose them is as they’re so good at retail and e commerce. Normally, we understood we wanted to accelerate our efforts and improve our customer experience.
Quite a few people say it’s a perfect idea to hold off as long as doable, you don’t give away equity later on when your own value business was probably less.
We decided not to raise resources from the initial stage -we didn’t need to as we were growing the business from its revenue.
We understood that when right investors came along, we will make funding and we partnered with Global Founders Capital in summer When any company raises money, it’s pretty specific for business areas that need that cash injection. We grew the business until it was profitable. Nonetheless, that was our choice and it’s an ideal way to grow and study as long as you have to be pretty money reasonable and where you’re putting it. Then once more, that’s where talking to additional retailers comes in.
That we may manage the stock, our business is rather data led so it’s rather crucial to measure our stock. Which are doing less well.
Xavier was amazing on that side of things.
We a few weeks ago did a customer survey -it’s truly significant to listen to feedback. Basically the business grew organically and now every cog is working and everything is probably ticking along we’re thinking about launching modern things. Evolving to make modern tech and logistics processes as you expand has definitely been a training time. Everyone has identical issues and concerns so networking is always a key way of staying on p of things, We all swap ideas. I’m sure you heard about this. That business side is truly essential and we have always been still studying. Keep reading! Fashion Digital conference, we speak at loads of panels, we figure out what different entrepreneurs have been doing. Known we now have a celebrity section as we’ve noticed that customers savor wearing dresses they’ve popular on celebrities. Print and pattern.
For occasions from weddings to dinner dates, Diane von Furstenberg’s ‘royal blue’ lace dress is usually an elegant choice.
Threequarter sleeves and the kneegrazing length contrast with the alluring zipped back.
Highlight the delicate eyelash trims next to bare bronzed legs. Popular on celebrities ranging from Holly Willoughby to Jordin Sparks and Bar Refaeli, now this dress is perfect for nearly any extraordinary event. Besides, So there’re lots of occasions throughout summer months when a more conservative dress is required. Although, this Marnie dress by Madderson London in powderblue and pale gold is probably straight out of Mad Men, clean and classic silhouette has a full skirt and ‘nipped in’ waist which has been incredibly flattering for a wedding, a day at races, or a christening. That said, although at the beginning it’s a slightly scary colour to pull off, powder blueish could be seen in any shop this season and, Therefore if right dress is looked with success for, That’s a fact, it’s a plain simple and flattering shade for most skin tones.