What's In My Portfolio: Sarah Garner

WHAT'S IN MY PORTFOLIOWhat's In My Portfolio: Sarah Garner
Photo courtesy of Retykle                            
06 Jan 2022
                        
Sarah Garner is the founder of Retykle                        
                                            

“Retykle is the largest resale platform in Asia dedicated to kids and maternity wear, gear, and toys. Retykle focuses on high-end children and maternity wear, as these higher quality items are built-to-last. We handle the entire resale process, from collection, to pricing and delivery, and even offer quality assurance services to mitigate the risks of damage and counterfeit items.

Prior to launching Retykle, I spent over 10 years working in luxury fashion for LVMH, Richemont, Lane Crawford, and Selfridges Group. After I became a mom, my whole perspective on my role within the industry and my desired career path changed. I wanted to apply my experience to solving for waste, rather than perpetuating consumption. As soon as my son was a few months old, I saw how quickly everything he used became obsolete in his wardrobe and yet was perfectly good to be passed forward for use by another family.

We launched Retykle in 2016 and as a pioneer in resale in Asia, there was a great deal of educating the market in the early stages. Online consignment, let alone consignment, was not in the vernacular of the typical customer. Firstly, there was the education about how it works, second there was the education around the waste problem to unlock participation, and third there were cultural barriers to overcome. We contended with all of these in turn with trust at the epicenter of our mission.

Since launching, we have recirculated over 150,000 items, saving 407,100lbs of carbon and 313m liters of water. Earlier this year, we became carbon neutral certified for 2020 as we recognized that although reducing carbon emissions was inherent in our business model, we were still creating emissions through our operations. We wanted to be accountable for our environmental footprint and work towards reducing it. Our certification is the first step along our journey to becoming truly carbon positive. Investor backed, Retykle has scaled up from Hong Kong to Singapore. We employ proprietary custom tech that makes our solution replicable and scalable to new markets to unlock widespread participation in our circular solution.

The climate crisis is upon us and it won’t be possible for any geography to ignore shifting consumer sentiments. All businesses need to evolve and innovate towards environmentally sustainable business practices.

Circular solutions like Retykle are critical to solving the sustainability challenge, and we hope to continue growing and building support for circularity in the textile market through our brand.”

PEOPLE

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