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Spotlight On – Nicola Gleave, Founder at Worn By Us
Nicola Gleave is the Founder of Worn By Us, a fashion resale business she started following a breast cancer diagnosis.
Initially set up to raise money for charity, Worn By Us now delivers commercial resale solutions for major brands and retailers whilst maintaining a core value of generating social impact through charitable giving from unwanted stock.
- Tell us a little bit about your business…
Worn By Us delivers fashion resale solutions for brands, retailers and consumers. Our aim is to help keep clothes in use for longer. We work with fashion brands to resell end of season and unwanted stock both on a commercial basis and for charity. This includes Customer Resale Schemes for retailers to support their customers to act more responsibly with unwanted fashion. We resell items sent to us providing a financial return back to the customer and a donation to charity.
- How did you get into the industry?
Following my breast cancer diagnosis, I began raising money for charity by asking celebrities to donate unwanted fashion items from their wardrobes to be re-sold. This generated lots of interest from people coming forward who had heard my story and wanted to donate or resell quality items from their wardrobes. In addition to retail partnerships, Worn By Us works with fashion stylists across the country whose clients are looking for a simple and easy way to resell clothing they no longer wear.
- What are the biggest opportunities and challenges in your industry?
The biggest opportunities is the changing landscape and narrative around sustainability and awareness from brands and consumers to change behaviours and to operate and act in a more responsible manner with regards to unwanted fashion. The movement by the industry to drive sustainability through ESG policies and practices is seeing a rapidly changing narrative and a more open willingness to seek new partnerships to help them achieve this.
The ever-changing economic climate poses challenges to this sector and many other industry sectors at the moment. Over recent years, the high street has changed and some well established brands have had to reinvent themselves or have disappeared altogether. The challenge (which is also an opportunity) is to constantly innovate and build long lasting relationships.