4 Women Behind India's Rental Fashion Movement

Meet the female forces behind some of India’s leading clothing and accessory rental services, and understand why it’s the future of fashion.

- Meghna Sharma

SABENA PURI

CEO and CoFounder, Stage3

stage3.co

“We launched Stage3 in 2015 with a mission to make top designers affordable and accessible to everyone. We built an inventory of top-tier designers like Sabyasachi, Shantanu & Nikhil, Ritu Kumar, etc, by buying it at a markdown, and renting it out at a price as low as ₹599. With time, we’ve established a name for ourselves, and are now working with most designers on a revenue-sharing basis.

Recently, celebrity stylist Rhea Kapoor joined us as Style Director, helping us add more designers to our roster. We also procure inventory through customers who want to make money off their closets, which means you can get paid for your old, designer goods! The rise of the ‘sharing economy’ is a big deal across sectors— think platforms like Uber, Netflix, and Airbnb. With the power of technology and the Internet, we’re creating a ‘sharing economy’ for fashion, helping people experiment with their style without having to commit to an expensive designer piece.

As of this month, Stage3 has over 70K signed-up users, and nearly 50% of them are recurring customers who have run up over 40,000 transactions till date. We believe in creating an engaged community—our team of stylists help customers find their dream outfit through in-store and telephonic styling sessions. And there’s even more—we just launched the Stage3-On-Wheels service in Delhi-NCR, to make our service accessible to people at their door-step. Right now, we offer clothing and select accessories (like jewelry) for both men and women, and very soon, we will be expanding into categories like handbags, plus-size clothing, maternity wear, etc, and introducing a subscription service!”

ASHRI JAISWAL Co-Founder, Ziniosa

ziniosa.com