London-based digital wardrobe and clothing repairs platform Save Your Wardrobe has recently secured $3 million in a seed funding round. With this, the company claims to have scored the largest seed investment round for a circular wardrobe platform in the country.
While, the official investors remain unknown, however, when contacted the spokesperson confirmed that luxury marketplace Farfetch participated in this funding round via its Dream Assembly programme. The proceedings will allow Save Your Wardrobe to continue its European expansion with a focus on the UK, Germany and France. Further, it will also contribute to growing the business’s product and technology teams and scale up its B2B offering, having already secured a partnership with one of the world’s biggest global retailers from Germany, Zalando.
How does it work?
Save Your Wardrobe digitises users’ wardrobes and offers access to repair and upcycling services in a bid to reduce waste. Further, the startup also uses AI, allowing garments to be easily scanned, identified and stored in users’ virtual wardrobes. This makes it easy to curate outfits, prevent cluttering your wardrobe with duplicate items, and share personal style inspirations with fellow circular fashionistas.
Since its founding in 2017 by Hasna Kourda, Save Your Wardrobe offering easy access to a full range of aftercare services that allow consumers to alter and repair and eco-clean, customise and upcycle their clothes. This also allows users to extend the life of their garments whilst supporting local tailors, cleaners, and craftspeople in a bid to close the fashion loop.
Founder and CEO, Hasna Kourda grew up in Tunisia, North Africa where sustainable practices like caring, reusing and repurposing garments were common practice. Upon witnessing the excessive levels of consumption and rise of fast fashion in Europe, she was inspired to create a solution to encourage consumers to make better decisions when it came to their wardrobes.
Speaking about the investment, Kourda said, “This investment round marks an incredibly exciting time for the Save Your Wardrobe team. Technology is at the forefront of our business and this investment allows us to really deliver on our mission to be pioneers in the circular fashion movement, with the most innovative technology to eradicate throw away culture.”
The Zalando collab!
Zalando collaborated with Save your Wardrobe, launching a Care & Repair initiative to help meet its ambitious target of extending the life of 50 million garments by 2023. To support them in achieving this goal, Save Your Wardrobe built a custom Care and Repair solution to facilitate connecting Zalando’s customers with a network of aftercare specialists across Berlin. Whilst also offering the online retailer unique insights to learn more about their customers’ behaviours and wardrobe preferences.
The landmark collaboration allowed Save Your Wardrobe to showcase how, through the recalibration of its technology, it is able to service both B2C and B2B functionality, offering insight, and facilitating more mindful consumption.
