Kering buys stake in luxury handbag rental platform Cocoon

Image of Gucci handbag

Gucci’s parent company Kering has bought up a stake in handbag rental service Cocoon in it’s latest play at the burgeoning industry of circular fashion.

The rental platform will use the investment to scale up its inventory, increase its workforce, and build on its logistics and tech development.

“This investment in Cocoon will enable us to monitor new consumption habits and digital practices,” said Kering’s chief client and digital officer Grégory Boutté, according to FashionUnited.

“We see the subscription model as a very interesting trend in fashion, and by extending the product lifecycle it resonates particularly well with Kering’s circularity ambition.”

The purchase mirrors one made by Kering earlier this year when it invested in resale platform Vestiaire Collective.

According to rental platform GlamCorner’s co-founder Dean Jones, rental platforms are increasingly being used by brands to dip their toes into circularity.

“Over the last couple of years, we started having a lot of brands asking us how they could build their own circular fashion solution because their own customers were asking them about it,” Dean Jones, GlamCorner’s co-founder and CEO, told Inside Retail.

“A lot of brands have already decided that rental is going to comprise a big piece of the fashion and apparel industry in the coming years, just like 10 years ago, building an online offering was going to be core to the product strategy.”

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