Today marks International Women’s Day, which provides Retail Gazette the perfect opportunity to highlight some of the talented female founders transforming the sector.
Sophie Hersan, co-founder, Vestiaire Collective
Vestiare Collective has become one of the most recognisable luxury resale platforms in the world.
What started off as a vision in Sophie Hersan’s Parisian apartment, has grown into a £1.2bn business.
The B Corp certified platform is one of the market leaders in the $182.4bn global resale industry and is made up of buyers and sellers in more than 50 countries worldwide.
The B Corp certified marketplace now boasts 500-plus employees across France, Germany, the US, Hong Kong and Singapore, of which 60% are women.
Victoria Prew, founder, HURR
Victoria Prew is the co-founder and chief executive of online fashion rental marketplace Hurr Collective.
After spotting a huge gap in the market for fashion rental, she partnered with Matthew Geleta in 2017 to launch the platform, which Forbes has nicknamed the “Airbnb of fashion”.
The wardrobe rental platform is a two-sided marketplace allowing lenders to make money from their under-utilised wardrobe and renters to access designer pieces for around 20% of their original retail price.
It has since gone on to partner with a number of retailers including John Lewis, Mulberry and Selfridges to launch rental services with their respective products.
Marcia Kilgore at Beauty Pie
Marcia Kilgore is the brains behind Beauty Pie, the make-up and beauty buyers club shaking up the beauty industry.
Beauty Pie has cut out the excessive packaging and large marketing budgets to offer its members luxury skincare sourced from the best factories around the world at a fraction of the cost of other retailers.
Kilgore is a serial entrepreneur and founded well known brands such as Fitflop, Soap and Glory and skincare brand Bliss Spa, which she sold to LVMH for a reported $25m.
Tessa Clarke and Saasha Celestial-One, founders of Olio
Tessa Clarke and Saasha Celestial-One are the duo behind the mobile app that is transforming food waste.
Having launched in 2015, the world’s first free food sharing app now has over six million global users with over half in the UK.
Big 4 grocer Tesco partnered with the app in 2020, which has seen more than 30 million meals saved from going to waste.
It has also partnered with Iceland, Sainsbury’s, Planet Organic and Selfridges to prevent food wastage.
Renée Elliot, founder of Planet Organic
US born Renée Elliot opened Planet Organic in Bayswater, London back in 1994, with a mission to promote health in the community.
“My goal was to push organic and natural food out of the niche that it was in and into the mainstream as the best quality food around,” she says.
That was the beginning of a chain of organic food stores. There are currently seven Planet Organic Stores in London and in 2020 adding an additional seven London-based stores to its portfolio.
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