The company: Girl Meets Dress
The bosses: Anna Bance and Xavier?de Lecaros-Aquise
Poor Princess Kate. She wears the same outfit twice and gets panned by the Daily Mail. Well, Kate, fret no more! Anna Bance’s ingenious service Girl Meets Dress rents out designer frocks and cocktail dresses so our future queen can chop and change as much as she likes. The formula is a simple rental model. For £29, the girl gets a dress for two nights. If the dress doesn’t fit, she just posts it back for a refund. No other fees. And the range ought to delight even the pickiest royal brands include Marc Jacobs, Chlo?, Roland Mouret, Fendi, and Yves Saint Laurent. This is haute couture at a knock-down price.
Bance got the idea while working for French luxury brand Herm’s. She says: “The ability to wear several different outfits is a definite crowd pleaser. Imagine it: you can wear a bright yellow cocktail dress to dinner tonight and a full-length ball gown for tomorrow night’s party. Different crowd, different place, different you. Around 98 per cent of our customers try a new brand they have never worn before in their lives that is a huge marketing opportunity for designers trying to reach new customers, and the next generation, on a mass scale.
Girl Meets Dress is two years old. Bance and her co-founder Xavier de Lecaros-Aquise employ ten people. It was entirely self-funded, and the pair did it all themselves from PR and marketing to IT and logistics.
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