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LA has yet another e-commerce company in the works, this one focusing on men’s fashion. NextSuit will be launching in September to give users a platform to rent a new suit every month for $100.
And, yes, NextSuit’s founder Valentine Ollawa has the business consulting background you think he would have when running a suit-centric company.
“The idea of suit rental for professionals came to me based on a personal burden of buying a new suit every time my style changed, or if I gained or lost weight,” Ollawa said. “After running a survey among men who work in suit-wearing industries, it appeared that I wasn't the only person facing this burden of suit flexibility. So that was when I decided to create this alternative approach to suit ‘ownership,’ where men could rent their suits for 30 days at a time.”
Leading up to their summer launch, the three-person NextSuit team is tightening up operations and getting inventory from retail brands to beef up the platform. Throughout this process, the team is being helped along by the abundance of entrepreneurial and fashion resources LA has to offer.
“The exposure to various fashion brands in LA has been helpful, and being able to be around the tech resources here have also been helpful, networking-wise,” Ollawa said.
Ollawa said he is open to any opportunities to help him partner with brands targeting young business professionals and recent college graduates: “We are going to be providing these menswear brands with more value than they would expect. We are hoping to sit down with some of these brands and present them with our value propositions that would benefit their marketing and customer acquisition efforts.”
Next up on NextSuit’s plate is raising funding to expand the platform to other cities and even to other product offerings, like women’s fashion.
“We see NextSuit expanding to offer women's retail within five years," Ollawa said. “We see our company becoming a leading rental company, and becoming one of the top go-to options for consumer retail.”
