Interview with Alessandro Franzese, CEO of The Paac
March 15, 2022
An interview with Alessandro Franzese, CEO of The Paac, a subscription fashion e-commerce website.
Fashion has always been an important element of the Italian culture. On the other hand, fashion is not always accessible to everyone. This is why new companies are emerging to bridge this gap through technology. The Paac takes up this challenge, with the aim of becoming the reference point for those who love to dress fashionably by offering a simple and sustainable service.
What is The Paac and how does it work?
The Paac is a web platform that gives access to an unlimited wardrobe through a subscription fee, always up-to-date and in line with the latest trends. By choosing one of the subscription plans, you will be able to receive new clothes at your doorstep every two weeks.
The Paac’s offer is straightforward and intuitive:
Step 1. Sign up to the platform and select 4 items to include in your first Paac box.
Step 2. Receive The Paac’s box. Wear the 4 garments and use them as if they were your own, for 2 weeks.
Step 3. At the end of the 2 weeks, buy the clothes you liked the most and take advantage of exceptional discounts reserved for subscribers. If you haven’t found anything interesting, you can return all the clothes and receive your new Paac box.
Step 4. Get new Paacs whenever you want!
With The Paac you have many advantages:
- Unlimited wardrobe: get new clothes every 2 weeks
- Always updated catalogue to select from the latest news
- Free shipping and returns
- Credits to buy your favourite items included in the subscription fee
- Reduce the environmental impact with more conscious choices
Hi Alessandro, nice to meet you and thanks for the time you have given us. The Paac: would you like to tell us about this great story?
Of course! The Paac was conceived as a solution to an issue. How many times have you thought: “I have nothing to wear”. A static and limited wardrobe makes it difficult to satisfy your dynamic need to express yourself with what you wear. We’ve solved this for you creating a limitless wardrobe at a fraction of the cost and environmental impact.
How and when did the idea for The Paac come about?
One day, I was waiting for my girlfriend to get dressed for a night out when she complained: “I have nothing to wear!” even though she was standing in front of two closets full of clothes. That’s when I realized how useful it would have been to have a wardrobe that adapts to our changing needs. At that point, I put together a team with considerable experience in management, marketing, fashion and technology and we launched www.thepaac.com.
As environmental consciousness is growing across brands as well, we realized that this model of clothing leasing could also make sense for companies and now we added a division that creates and manages this type of service for fashion brands as well.
How does The Paac promote environmentally sustainable fashion?
Fashion is the second most polluting industry mainly because of product manufacturing. The Paac has created a model that allows you to wear over 100 garments per year while consumers currently buy 68 on average. At the same time, it reduces the need to produce so many items thanks to the circular economy. Users can wear more pieces of clothes without the need to purchase and leave all of them in a wardrobe. If a consumer falls in love with a garment she can still keep it and buy it also exploiting the credits that are included in the subscription. We use more than four garments every two weeks, so having a wardrobe is still required. However, with The Paac we can renew it more often without putting a strain on the environment.
The Paac aims at reducing the total quantity of garments produced – which are often low quality – by providing high-quality items and exploiting the circular economy. This leads to considerable water saving in the manufacturing process with projections of roughly 250,000 litres of water and 250 kilograms of CO2 emissions saved per user per year.
A specialized supplier reconditions the garments as a user would normally do after using them with no negative impact on the environment. Finally, also the packaging is environmentally conscious, made of recycled paper fibre.
How long did it take you to put the project together?
The market research and partner search took some time, but once the first round of funding was closed, we were able to launch a first version of the site in just three months. The response has been really good, and we will be announcing a new round of fundraising soon to accelerate expansion both in Italy and abroad.
Who is The Paac target customer?
The service is offered to women who want to have an unlimited wardrobe at a fraction of the cost and environmental impact and is available throughout Italy. However, we are working to expand abroad and to make it available also to men and children.
How did you launch your projects? Did you make use of crowdfunding campaigns?
We have never used crowdfunding campaigns in the past but we closed a pre-seed round involving some business angels and one corporate venture capital.
Any projects for the future?
So many! We will be opening a new round soon to accelerate growth. We are developing new features for www.thepaac.com and new B2B2C initiatives to create and manage apparel leasing sites for well-known fashion brands such as www.pinkoplay.com .
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