‘We Are The End User’: How Women-Led Fashion Tech Companies Are Shaking Up The Industry
had to sell my Cartier bracelet, my Jimmy Choos,” says Lexi Willetts, a former lawyer, and co-founder of Little Black Door. She made nearly £30,000 last year reselling her clothes and accessories online. “I made half that,” says her co-founder, Marina Pengilly. She couldn’t quite bring herself to part with her Chanel handbags. It was early 2019 and the two women needed money. They had quit their jobs to start Little Black Door, a digital wardrobe inventory platform, which allows users to catalogue their closets, compile outfit combinations and sell clothes on resale sites – all online. Since then, the two founders have tested the Little Black Door app on 250 users, raised more than £350,000 from friends and family, and are getting ready for a seed round of £1.5m to launch a version for the general public at the end of this year. The fashion sector has been hit harder than most during the Covid-19 pandemic: an update to McKinsey’s The State of Fashion 2020 report estimates a global revenue contraction of 30% year-on-year. However, the same report also predicts the industry could regain positive growth of 4% in 2021. Read more at The Guardian.
