Let's transform the value of fashion
We change the rules of the fashion game, so that fashion brand's economic growth leads to a healthier planet, increased human dignity and better quality of life.
We aim to replace the 60% of everyday-use garments in every wardrobe with Plural garments that are sustainably produced, have a three times longer lifetime, and are fully recycled without producing any waste.
The Problem
As it is with any business, also fashion brands have to generate revenue to remain competitive, to pay the bills, to pay their talent, and to drive profits. The traditional way of doing this is to source virgin materials, produce a garment, and sell it. Produce, sell, waste, repeat.
This is clearly not sustainable. Sourcing virgin materials puts a lot of stress on the environment, and disposing a broken garment produces a lot of waste. The issue is intensified by the attempts of some brands to produce at an ever lower price. Hazardous substances are used for the production and workforce is underpaid in order to decrease the monetary price of the item and sell to more customers. The use of these substances makes it harder to recycle the materials later, while at the same time the brands experience an economic growth through returning customers who need to replace that garment which they bought just a year ago.
There are indeed brands that focus on sustainable production, meaning they pay fair wages and use gentler processes for their production. We also see a lot of brands now producing garments from fully reclaimed materials. Still, the basic business model never changes that requires them to always keep producing and selling new items. And although using reclaimed materials is much more sustainable, it still requires resources to turn the material into a new garment. Usually these garments are not very affordable in large volumes to the general consumer, so sustainable brands struggle increasing demand.
Our approach
Plural changes the base of produce-sell-waste: The business model. We pay fashion brands each month based on their garments in active use through a clothing subscription, where the customer doesn’t pay for the garment anymore, but instead for the services around the garment.
How fashion brands flourish through Plural
Getting a monthly revenue flow from existing items means the longer a garment is in use, the more revenue brands make — without needing to invest into producing any new items. So while their production investment decreases, their profits rise.
Plural sources its garments exclusively from sustainable brands. These garments become affordable to a wider audience with a Plural subscription, so the growth brands experience in turn propels the development of sustainable production practices. In the long term, this decrease the overall production costs for sustainable garments.
Due to its cost structure, Plural offers a stable and predictable monthly recurring revenue for brands. This can help brands to better plan their next steps in advance, but what’s even more interesting that it releases the pressure from brands of having to produce something new and finding new buyers all the time. The task load shifts from marketing to new customers over to finding new users of existing items — while rolling in comparable (or even higher) profits than with the old model.
Collections are a way of selling more items for the coming season. How will the role of collections change through Plural? Members will still look for new garments each season, but instead of buying freshly produced ones, we can deliver existing garments from our network. Therefore the order volume for new collection drops, which means brands can expect to invest less of their profits into producing a stock of items for their new collection, and will have left less dead stock. The stock of items that will be distributed already exists in the Plural network. At the same time, brands drive monthly revenues from their previously sold items, which substantially decreases the need to roll out a new collection in the first place.
How you enjoy higher quality of life
Plural is more than a rental and swapping service. We care for garments to maintain their quality. We do repairs. We get you premium garments that you couldn’t buy otherwise in this quantity.
It also means that you just keep the items at home that you actually use, while releasing the other items (that usually just stick around in the lowest drawer anyway…) for use by other members, thereby decluttering your wardrobe and putting an emphasise on the items you actually use (and love).
And eventually, whoever wears Plural will also know more about the sustainable drawbacks of the traditional fashion model. Plural offers a wonderful opportunity to spread more knowledge about sustainability, and smoothly aligns quality of life for every member with sustainable consumption.
The role of clothing styles and fashion trends
We want you to feel your best self in your Plural garments. We do support styling up with personal taste, but we refrain from trends. Trends make a garment obsolete after one season which is quite contrary to our mission. Styles are more stable, and we can group people with similar styles so that garments get actually reused for a long time within this member group. We don’t attempt to cancel out signature pieces, or to remove fashion trends completely. But we focus on the 60% of your wardrobe that you use every day, and that you combine with your signature pieces. If you dress with basics and classics every day, why not dress with the very best??
What it means for environment and humanity
Our aim is to establish a 3x longer garment lifetime. 3x longer lifetime means 3x less resources, 3x less emissions and 3x less waste within that time span. We achieve this by employing innovative textile care technologies, by developing intelligent algorithms that drive our business and by encouraging brands to invest into the longevity of their garments.
McKinsey & Company and Global Fashion Agenda, Fashion on Climate (2020) wrote: "To meet the 1.5-degree pathway set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and ratified by signatories to the 2015 Paris agreement, the fashion industry needs to reduce emissions by around 50% […] by 2030."
Producing an item under fair conditions usually also bumps up the item’s retail price a lot, but through a subscription it just means a few cents more per month so that the people who made our clothes can actually enjoy a good life as well.
What’s next
Plural itself is just the frame— it’s the people within that give Plural the leverage to change the fashion industry. People like you. When you wear Plural, you wear the change. Every. Single. Day. Spread our cause, reserve yourself a spot for a Plural subscription, or join the team. We are all part of this.
