Meet The Founder – Nuw, A New Form of Trend for the Planet

When investing, your capital is in danger. 

The garment business – quick vogue particularly – is likely one of the largest culprits with regards to damaging environmental influence. Not solely does it generate lots of of thousands and thousands of things that go to landfill yearly, however its greenhouse gasoline emissions quantity to greater than worldwide flights and maritime delivery mixed.

Nuw is redefining what it means to put on one thing ‘new’, by the ability of the round economic system. The model has constructed a platform based mostly on sharing and swapping that finally provides its hundreds of customers entry to a communal wardrobe, permitting them to seek out new items, and half with people who they could in any other case have discarded. 

We sat down with founder and CEO Aisling Byrne to seek out out extra.

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What’s Nuw’s imaginative and prescient?

Quick vogue pushes 52 vogue seasons a 12 months at all-time low costs, however the true price is paid by garment employees and the planet. On this cycle of purchase, put on, and dispose we’re dropping thousands and thousands in worth by underneath utilising the garments we already personal. Within the UK alone there’s £30 billion value of unused garments sitting in wardrobes, and that’s simply the UK… think about what it’s like for the remainder of the world!

This international drawback presents a worldwide alternative by creating worth from the garments already in our wardrobes. And this idea just isn’t area of interest. The secondhand clothes market is anticipated to triple in worth to $64 billion, 1.5 occasions the dimensions of quick vogue by 2028 and Nuw is entrance and centre of this rising market.

Nuw’s globally scalable social community for sharing and swapping garments encapsulates vogue’s largest tendencies: entry over possession, sustainability, and thrifting. Customers expertise the enjoyment of discovering one thing that’s ‘new to you’ with out the environmental price. 

What impressed you to begin constructing the corporate?

Rising up I used to be obsessive about fast-fashion. I didn’t name it fast-fashion…. It was simply ‘vogue’ to me. A brand new outfit for each occasion with not a lot considered the clothes earlier than it reached the store ground and after it left my wardrobe. 

In 2015, when The True Value documentary was launched, I knew an excessive amount of and couldn’t take pleasure in vogue in the identical means anymore. 

I needed sustainable options. Alternate options that might enable me to nonetheless take pleasure in vogue however transfer away from the business that didn’t symbolize my values, however in all places I regarded was unaffordable or just far-off. Sustainable vogue, and even simply sustainability gave the impression to be a luxurious.

It didn’t take lengthy to grasp we have been already doing this in our personal means. Any time there was an occasion arising we’d borrow from pals. Garments received handed round like ‘pass-the-parcel’ and by consequence, these garments had a vibrant and prolonged life. Placing the wardrobes we already had to make use of with a group of individuals was liberating and empowering. There was no want to purchase or hire our subsequent outfit – there have been greater than sufficient garments going round. We may all nonetheless obtain that feeling of carrying one thing ‘new’ as a result of it was ‘new to us’. We may get monetary savings, experiment with vogue, make pals – all whereas lowering our environmental influence. 

To actually tackle fast-fashion, and win. I knew we wanted to go large; to make garments sharing straightforward in a globally scalable means. That’s the place Nuw started – the social community to share and swap high-quality however under-loved garments together with your group, and it’s been rising ever since.

How did your previous skilled expertise put together you for it?

All my abilities and expertise have poured into Nuw in numerous methods. I’m artistic, a visionary, a born chief however I had by no means imagined I might turn into an entrepreneur. 

I learn music at Trinity School Dublin, so unsurprisingly I’m an award-winning pitcher. I’m most at residence on a stage and in entrance of an viewers. I additionally labored as a media planner for Eire’s largest media planning and shopping for company throughout excessive price range accounts like PwC, McDonald’s and Jack Daniels. So within the early days of Nuw, reaching our good early adopters got here naturally to me (I met 70 of them in particular person for espresso). 

Having frolicked in India within the Summer time of 2013, the identical 12 months because the Rana Plaza garment manufacturing unit collapse, I developed a deep understanding of vogue and sustainability and I started to visitor lecture on this matter on the Nationwide School of Artwork and Design and on the London School of Trend.

What was a very powerful factor you realized when beginning the corporate?

If individuals don’t use a product when it’s dangerous, buggy, and breaking, they received’t use it when it’s good. So we positively couldn’t go straight to constructing a totally fledged app earlier than stress-testing the thought as manually as potential first. 

Our first trial was strolling round college lectures asking individuals to e mail us attire they wouldn’t be carrying to that 12 months’s ball, posting them up on a make-shift web site touchdown web page and arranging borrowing in WhatsApp teams. It wasn’t fairly however the concept actually caught with individuals and that was sufficient to begin constructing. 

These early days are essential. Being in these WhatsApp teams with sharers gave me insights into all of the mechanics of how this might play out in higher tech. You see first-hand all of the potential limitations, human errors and bugs, however you additionally see what excites them most, how they work together with one another, and see the tales of the items being shared come to life. These are issues you possibly can miss in customary suggestions channels because the product and enterprise grows.

Why is now the absolute best time for Nuw to develop?

The pandemic naturally introduced issues to a pause; nobody was borrowing for occasions as a result of they merely weren’t taking place. We used the downtime to develop internally, constructing our crew and product to turn into a platform that may cater to, sure, even a pandemic.

When the thought for Nuw first took place, ‘sustainable vogue’ and ‘fast-fashion’ have been nonetheless area of interest phrases. At present the world could be very completely different. Sustainable vogue and it’s polar reverse, fast-fashion are mainstream phrases and ‘local weather anxiousness’ is rife, particularly amongst younger and aware customers. This together with the impacts of Covid-19 and an approaching recession is forcing the style business to alter quickly. 

In line with the ThreadUp report, the secondhand clothes market is predicted to develop to 1.5 occasions that of fast-fashion by 2028, almost tripling in worth to $64 billion. Our goal market, younger girls from 18-35, have gotten extra aware and thrifty. They’ve invested of their wardrobe and disposing of it doesn’t make sense, reselling might be arduous and sharing or swapping with pals organically has turn into tougher since Covid. Nuw is entrance and middle of this international alternative to rebuild vogue with a tech centered, contactless, and guilt-free resolution.

What has progress regarded wish to date?

Nuw began as a small clothes-sharing net web page trialled on the Trinity Ball at Trinity School Dublin. It grew to an alpha web site at universities in Dublin, London, and Cambridge the place college students would borrow attire for balls. 

We took half within the Bethnal Inexperienced Ventures tech-for-good accelerator programme and this moved Nuw to London. We closed a £215okay pre-seed spherical in April 2019 to construct the Nuw app and convey the product to market which we did in January 2020, after a collection of beta trials with a closed group of customers.   

Since our launch we’ve hit 4,000 customers and over 1,000 shares amongst our group. After introducing our new swap function and establishing partnerships with UPS and Misplaced Inventory, we’ve additionally expanded Nuw throughout the UK and Eire. 

Over the following 6-Eight months we plan to hit above 10% of constant month on month progress of each customers and exercise, after which we’ll purpose to shut a seed spherical (early 2021) to concentrate on scale.

How have you ever improved your product based mostly on buyer suggestions?

Some key enhancements we added based mostly on person suggestions was our everlasting swap function in the course of the pandemic. When lockdown occurred, our group had completely different wants for his or her wardrobe. They have been in search of extra informal put on and long-term finds. So, we carried out swaps and expanded the platform throughout Eire and the UK to make sure a wider sharing community. We have been assured in implementing this new function due to the constant, sincere suggestions we get from our members. 

Who’s your goal buyer and the way do you propose on reaching them?

We joke that our goal girls are all these with floordrobes and chairdrobes. These of us with extra garments than wardrobes house, so the wardrobe extends to all different areas of the room. 

Our goal is the ladies who’re all the time in search of one thing new to put on. They’re nonetheless in a fast-fashion mindset and primarily store high-street to mid-market however are keen to seek out sustainable options. Most of our members are girls and people who determine as girls between 18-35. Nuw caters for the wants of Gen-Z (Mintel’s 2019 survey discovered 75% of 16-24 12 months olds within the UK have swapped vogue with pals or household within the final 12 months or could be excited about doing so).

Our customers stay a number of their life on-line so we attain them by focused Instagram promoting, collaborations with influencers and thought leaders, and our model ambassador community; tremendous customers who actively assist to develop and promote Nuw to their social community and native space. 

What’s one merchandise of clothes you couldn’t stay with out?

A crisp white shirt! Nevertheless it’s received to be a bit distinctive.

What’s the very best classic buy you’ve ever made? 

A classic tweed Ralph Lauren blazer I discovered for $three in a thrift retailer on Nantucket Island. Most likely would have been good if somebody had filmed my response when I discovered it. I used to be fairly excited. 

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To search out out extra about Nuw, try the pitch now.