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Program Participants
Vitaly Inc.Nami Suzuki
Tell us about the services offered by Vitaly.
Vitaly’s newest business
is an online service in which Fashiontech meets Fintech. Put simply, it’s a dress rental service; however,
the dresses themselves won’t be owned by Vitaly, but by ordinary investors. Under this mechanism, Vitaly
will manage those dresses so that they provide investors with a return on their investment. From the
user’s perspective, the appeal lies in the fact that they can, at an affordable price, get the chance to
wear stunning dresses made by desirable brands beyond their budget or brands not usually found in Japan.
In addition, Vitaly will deal with the management of the clothes, so the owners of these dresses can turn
a small investment into a hassle-free business.
By avoiding a focus on whether a brand is Japanese or
foreign in assembling our range of dresses, we want users to become “fans of the world view behind the
service that we provide” rather than “fans of dresses by a particular brand.” There are a number of
incredible up-and-coming designers in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea right now, so I hope to go and
buy some of those.
What typically motivates service users to rent a dress?
When a woman puts on a special outfit, she feels more confident and positive,
and a bit different from her usual self. For instance, the nature of my job is such that I have lots of
opportunities for speaking in public, so on those occasions, I usually wear clothes that make me stand a
little taller, so that I can speak with confidence. But you do get a bit self-conscious if you wear the
same outfits every time you speak to a big audience. It’s difficult to spend large sums of money on
clothes that you’ll only wear a handful of times and I thought how great it would be to have a service
that would make it easy to rent a nice dress on those occasions when you want to look a bit more stylish.
And that’s how I ended up creating a service that I myself wanted. I really hope that this service will
enable lots of women to discover new facets of their personality and enjoy themselves, by giving them the
chance to wear nice clothes at an affordable price.
We intend to set a limit on the number of times
that an outfit can be rented out, to guarantee that it’s in good condition, and also plan to implement
thorough quality control, to ensure that clothes with even the slightest trace of deterioration don’t
reach the user. This service has two missions: to help women experience happiness by wearing a lovely
outfit and to increase the number of fans of the designers who created those beautiful clothes.
Tell us about your plans for future development
I want women to use this service to find their own unique style of beauty that
is not fitted into the norms. I want them to choose an outfit because they think it will make them look
pretty, not because it’s on-trend. I think that, if the outfits are affordable, women can try out clothes
that they wouldn’t normally choose, and I’m a firm believer that each and every one of us has our own
unique style of beauty. That’s why I want to fully build this perspective on the world into this service.
Because if you don’t subscribe to this outlook, you can’t rent the clothing anyway.
I also want to use
the business model of “managing goods to make a profit” to overturn the idea that purchasing =
consumption. I think it’s fine if the person who buys the dress isn’t the one who wears it. Even older men
could buy dresses that they think are pretty! ＜Laughs＞ I just want to use this mechanism to expand the
range of purchasers and shake up Japan’s apparel industry. In addition, Japan’s one of the hardest
countries for artists to achieve success. I hope that I can help to increase the fan base of the designers
who create these outfits by ensuring that lots of people use this service. I get the feeling that
entrepreneurs like us don’t get the same kind of recognition here as in the West. I want to make an impact
on Japan’s hierarchy by achieving success in a business that unites artists with entrepreneurs.