EXCLUSIVE: Darren Star Is Investing in a French Resale Site
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Resale and the City?
Darren Star, the American television wiz behind “Emily in Paris” and “Sex and the City,” is among three new investors in French luxury resale site Resee, WWD has learned.
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The others are American tech entrepreneur Shari Glazer, founder and chief executive officer of Kalos Labs, and Michael Dayan, a cofounder of French e-commerce pioneer Showroomprive.com, a former owner of Sonia Rykiel and a frequent tech investor.
“I’ve been following the Resee journey for years,” Star told WWD. “I was attracted by the appeal of curated vintage fashion, but most of all by the level of taste and intelligence behind the brand.“
Figures from the entertainment world have recently become active investors in fashion and beauty firms, applying their wealth, fame, credibility and consumer insights to help brands grow.
According to Resee, the trio of experts from various fields will “support the company’s exponential growth at the heart of the very buoyant secondhand market.”
Financial terms were not disclosed, but it’s believed the investments total in the single-digit millions.
In a statement, Resee cofounders and majority owners Sofia Bernardin and Sabrina Marshall said the new funding round would help accelerate its international expansion, burnish its global sourcing capabilities and help it invest in the necessary tech to optimize its capabilities.
Expansion will next focus on Switzerland, Hong Kong and Singapore. France remains a key market for Resee, and it recently opened at showroom on Avenue Kléber in Paris.
Next week, it plans to open a monthlong pop-up shop at the Carlyle Hotel in New York City. The U.S. was Resee’s largest market in the first half of 2022, accounting for 38 percent of sales.
The company is gunning to reach sales of 25 million euros by 2025.
While smaller than rivals like Vestiaire Collective or The RealReal, Resee boasts an average basket of 1,161 euros.
Founded in 2013, it specializes in such covetable fashion items as Hermès handbags, archival Alaïa and runway pieces from Karl Lagerfeld-era Chanel and Phoebe Philo-era Celine. Its roster of notable resellers include actress Catherine Deneuve, jewelry designer Gaia Repossi, fashion designer and painter Vanessa Seward and creative director and consultant Vanessa Traina.
In tandem with its new investors, Resee said it is setting up an advisory board to support the brand’s development. Among new members are Sébastien Fabre, cofounder and former CEO of Vestiaire Collective.
Buoyed by strong global demand for vintage and secondhand high-end goods, the company has been logging revenue growth of about 120 percent each year, and boasts that it has been profitable from the get-go.
The global secondhand apparel market is forecast to grow by 127 percent to $218 billion by 2026, three times faster than the global apparel market overall, according to the “2022 Resale Report” by online resale platform ThredUp.
