For Jie Zheng and Rie Yano, the options for selling used clothing were just not cutting it. Consignment stores were picky, thrift shops paid virtually nothing for their wares, and eBay was complicated. Both were working as marketers for big fashion brands, buying a lot of clothes for office days and work events, and trying to cram them into small New York apartments and tight budgets.
While on a trip to Montauk last year, the two (who met in Harvard Business School) started brainstorming. Zheng had the idea for a peer-to-peer marketplace for offloading used clothing, while Yano was interested in creating a platform to share outfits and express personal fashion tastes.
“The ideas were perfect compliments,” says Zheng, so the two started working a business model and website for their startup Material Wrld last fall.
Both of the ideas are being pursued by a slew of other fashion tech startups right now. Applications like Fashism, Pose, Go Try It on, and even Instagram allow users to post outfit photos and get feedback. Meanwhile, a social secondhand online clothing marketplace called ThreadFlip launched its alpha version last week, and one of the hot startups in this year’s Y Combinator class was 99Dresses, a platform where users can buy and sell used clothing using a virtual currency.
“We really support responsible consumption,” says Zheng. “We’re really excited we and others can get these fashion recycling parties started.”
But what’s so different about her startup?
Material Wrld, which has some angel funding and is working on raising a full seed round, is focused on layering social and editorial content over its shopping marketplace. Ultimately, shoppers won’t just look for items, but will be able to virtually shop through the closets of tastemakers like fashion bloggers. As part of that, Material Wrld is very carefully targeting who it wants to sell on its platform initially, in order to start with “quality sellers and quality merchandise,” Zheng says.
For now, Zheng sees Material Wrld as a faster, more efficient shopping destination for those who don’t have time to hunt brick-and-mortar secondhand stores.
“You can get a glimpse into the closets of really cool people who have great taste,” Zheng says. “I love vintage, but you really have to search hard before finding that one treasure, that one consignment piece.”
Those looking to lighten up their closet, meanwhile, will be able to sell in a marketplace that’s designed to be more lucrative than the thrift and consignment stores, simpler to use and prettier than eBay, and more fun than both methods, Zheng says.
The startup is testing out the concept with small popup shops online, Zheng says. “Even though the grand vision has been this peer-to-peer marketplace, we always knew that it was hard to launch a marketplace overnight,” says Zheng. The first edition, held earlier this month, featured
