This Dubai rental startup offers high fashion at low prices

For women, TonSites like Facebook and Instagram are limiting the ability to recycle their favorite clothes, dubai entrepreneur Sara Alemzadeh and Ranya Khalil have Find a solution. They launched Designer-24, an online clothing rental startup that caters to an audience that wants designer fashion at their fingertips but at an affordable price.

In just three years, it has become a disruptor of the UAE fashion circle. Like many bright ideas, it was obvious in hindsight. After all, men have been hiring tuxedos for decades.

change the game

For Alemzadeh, when she realized that fashion women had so many opportunities to dress up, they were splurging on four-figure designer gowns, and their pennies were down, and they only wore them once or twice.

“ Middle Eastern women are smart and fashionable, and like collaborative consumption “But with the advent of social media, dressing women has become a very expensive endeavor,” she said. They post pictures of themselves every time they go to a wedding, cocktail party or lunch and wish they were dressed differently each time. “

“With the Designer-24, women can only wear the dress once and pay only 5%-15% of the retail price,” Alemzad explain.

Already a huge trend in the US, renting designer clothes is a relatively new concept in the region.

Former investment banker Alemzadeh, 36, and her friend Ranya Khalil, 30, started the business in 2014. “We also offer summer packages where customers can rent dresses for 30 days and sell the dresses as sample sales after we’ve rented them out,” she said.

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The company has more than 2,000 designer dresses – from Oscar de la Renta and Elie Saab to Zuhair Murad and Pronovias. “Our rentals start at $22 then go up $275 For haute couture gowns. It costs between 5-15% off retail,” she says. Its smooth logistics deliver gowns to customers’ front doors, pick them up and dry clean them. The company also rents out designer clutches, earrings and necklaces.

provide value

“We work directly with over 50 designers around the world. We have the same new-season stock as all major department stores and boutiques. This makes the value proposition very clear,” says Alemzadeh. Her background in investment banking meant she naturally gravitated towards the financial side of the business, while Khalil’s background in luxury retail and events helped develop it.

“ Our goal is to make women happy wearing designer fashion at revolutionary prices ’” added Alemzadeh, which launched a bridal gown rental service in January.

Last year, they launched an inventory powered by women who rent out designer clothes. “Women in this region have beautiful dresses in their closets that they only wear once or twice. Now they can recoup their original purchase price simply by renting out the dress on our platform,” says Alemzadeh.

But getting the business off the ground wasn’t easy, she said. “In building a startup, one has to work really hard and be patient with customers, business development partners, marketing — everything.”

“We spent about six months going back and forth between New York, London, Paris and Beirut, pitching designers and giving them an understanding of the Middle Eastern market and our vision. We complement retail well And introduced a lot of emerging designers to the region, who are popular now and selling well,” she added.

Now, Alemzadeh and Khalil’s efforts appear to be paying off. Such is the buzz around the business — they’ve loaned out millions of dollars’ worth of dresses since launch — that it’s already recording growth. Alemzadeh, who did not disclose the company’s turnover, said, “In the past two years, our average quarter-on-quarter growth has exceeded 60%, and we have also established an office in Beirut.”

Clearly, the role of social media in driving their business is only going to grow, says Alemzadeh, “A lot of influencers are wearing our clothes and their social media Position. Instead of reaching out to individual designers, we become their one-stop shop. That’s how a lot of women hear about us. We show the market that renting out is not taboo. “