The Billion-Dollar Opportunity in Brand-Owned Resale, Circular Fashion Summit to ‘Redesign Society’: Short Takes
Executive Changes: The RealReal’s former director of business development, Karin Dillie, is heading into the brand-owned resale space at Recurate.
While at The RealReal, Dillie led strategy and growth of its business-to-business segment, overseeing $100 million in revenue.
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She will join Recurate as vice president of partnerships in a similar role, forging new business partnerships.
“I joined Recurate, a plug-and-play tool that lets brands offer an owned resale channel within a matter of weeks, because any successful fashion brand today will need to have an owned resale channel or lose billions in market share,” said Dillie.
Recurate is backed by Gradient (Google’s AI-focused venture fund).
Dillie also counts five years with Sotheby’s early in her career and believes trust — leveraged by brand name — will separate winners and losers in resale. Noting how consumer trust won’t dissipate in importance, she said, “buying a pre-loved handbag from the same brand’s online store that you bought a new pair of boots from is going to be a billion-dollar game changer for the fashion community,” according to Dillie.
Calling All Digital Designers: The Circular Fashion Summit is opening designer applications for its third annual Impact Design Hub initiative.
Billed as the first virtual reality circular fashion summit, the event is put on annually by technology platform Lablaco. Themed “Redesigning Society,” this year’s hub will focus on efforts to redesign the fashion industry system.
Designers must qualify under one or more categories including materials, process, planet and people — each refined under the United Nations sustainable development goals.
For example, designers who qualify for materials must have used renewable, regenerative or other circular raw materials, while those qualifying under the “people” category empower more traditional forms of craftsmanship and social good.
Applications are available at CFS.fashion and close June 21.
There will be 10 global digital designers chosen to display their designs, with each receiving 100,000 euros in materials, services and mentoring from a global family of cross-industry partners.
Such services include a subscription to 3D fashion software, CLO, with a certified academia program on digital fashion creation and all-year access to the digital exhibition space.
Last year’s Impact Design Hub highlighted designers of color with two of the honorees, Rui Zhou and Lukhanyo Mdingi, going on to become semifinalists for the LVMH prize 2021.
Arc’teryx Launches “ReBird”: Arc’teryx introduces its “ReBird” circular program to house its upcycling, resale, care and repair activities.
As of May 19, any customer can use the ReBird program to access care and repair services. ReBird will also serve as a dedicated hub to educate consumers.
“In terms of consumer engagement, we’re really going to learn by doing,” said Katie Wilson, senior manager of sustainability at Arc’teryx. The meaning behind the name is a fond “pet name” used internally, according to Wilson, as the company’s logo draws a resemblance to a bird.
The outdoor brand will also reveal its first upcycled products made from postconsumer waste, while bringing Arc’teryx Used Gear to New York and Chicago stores for limited events.
Upcycled totes, pouches (available in North America and online) and windshell jackets for men and women (in all markets) dot the collection, which ranges in price from $35 for the pouch to $179 for the jacket.
The upcycling process occurs in-house at Arc’teryx’s Arc 1 factory in Vancouver. Materials are sourced from factory excess and postconsumer waste from its care and repair services and Used Gear trade-in program in the U.S. and Canada.
In a nod to Arc’teryx’s first upcycled design pilot, the company’s director of product design Greg Grenzke said the idea was several years in the making. “We were seeing GoreTex jackets that couldn’t easily be repaired, and we wanted something that was functional and usable. The pouches were an easy solution [that we brought back].”
While limited in scope today, Grenzke said the program is something the company is looking to scale and evolve with the consumer, goals similar to those seen among players like The North Face.
“It’s exciting to shift mind-sets away from the hyper-consumer or hyper-consumption that we see,” added Wilson.
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Arc’teryx Launches Repurposing Program
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