Agnes Brenninkmeijer (OS 2007) is the co-founder of Ida, a fully-serviced mid-market fashion resale platform.
'I grew up in a family steeped in the fashion trade and as a result worked all the jobs in the industry from the shop-floor upwards. During a buying trip to India in 2016, I witnessed first-hand the fashion industry's contribution to climate change and the lives it impacted while visiting cotton farmers. I decided then and there to focus my efforts on the inevitable transition to the circular economy which brought me back to the UK to do a Masters in Environmental Technology. A year later, I teamed up with my co-founder, Nina Leibenfrost-Fernstrom, to create Ida, a fresh new brand, dedicated to getting more people to shop secondhand first.
We started Ida because we couldn't find an inspiring and fun fashion resale platform that focuses on mid-market contemporary brands. The resale landscape is focused on either luxury brands trading at high prices or on high-street clothes for serious bargains - yet there is no dedicated platform for the vast offering that sits in between. That is where we decided to establish ourselves. Our goal is to get more people to contribute to a circular fashion economy and we do this by making reselling as smooth as possible by removing all the hassle and making shopping pre-owned fun, stylish and contemporary. We just opened a shop in Covent Garden on Langley Court so if you're looking to shop sustainably this Christmas, stop by!
We also launched a partnership with Olio, a food sharing app, to keep clothes in circulation longer. Whatever we deem not sellable or that has been cleared from our platform is shared with the Olio community and therefore not thrown away.'