Designer Wardrobe Looks For Aussie Conquest

An Auckland-based web business which allows people to buy, sell and rent designer clothes is looking to take its successful formula across the Tasman.

Designer Wardrobe was founded in 2012 by Donielle Brooke, whose penchant for fashion led the then 25-year-old to set up a Facebook group for women interested in trading or renting posh second-hand clothes.

Within weeks, she had thousands of members, and when her group membership hit 14,000 a few months later, Brooker and her friend Aidan Bartlett scraped together their savings and launched a website, with two mobile phone apps.

Features include insurance for renters and lenders, a valet service which will do the listing for you, and new stock from a selection of top boutiques. Through Snowball, an equity crowdfunding platform, the company is hoping to raise at least $1.2 million which would be used to further develop its new Australian website, and add men’s and kids’ clothes to the mix. They also hope to start buying stock to start a rental store, in addition to its existing service which allows members to lend to each other.

Brooke says, "I love creating and I'm really good at growing something that I really believe in. I have had two jewellery labels and then I started DW. I think it's my creative side that just loves to create." With 85,000 members now in New Zealand and 5000 in Australia, Designer Wardrobe picked up steam after going though the Lightening Lab business acceleration programme.

Brooke says she wasn't really surprised at the site's success as there were few places to sell designer clothes for a reasonable price. Sellers would be upset at being offered $20 for a $500 Karen Walker coat on traditional online marketplaces, and the condition of clothing wasn't always top-notch. "I think sometimes I don't really sit back and take it all in and see how far it's come, but at the same time I understand why it has. "Women only tend to wear 20 per cent of their wardrobe so they do need a place to sell the rest."

The Australian market is even bigger, with an estimated 1.2 million women in Designer Wardrobe's target market. Brooke said members from both countries would be able to access clothes from opposite sides of the Tasman. Kiwis loved Australian designers and the feeling was mutual in Australia about Kiwi fashion, she said. They would start in Melbourne, Australia's fashion heart, then Perth and Sydney.

To find out more about buying designer clothes, buying clothes and selling shoes online, please go to https://designerwardrobe.co.nz/ .