Grailed's CEO Talks About Reselling Culture and How Menswear Is Shifting

Menswear is booming, and men are spending more and more money and time shopping than women are. Even Balenciaga and Stella McCartney want to get in on the menswear pie with their own male-oriented lines. But unsurprisingly, a lot of men’s fashion is intertwined with streetwear and sneakers, a growing area of fashion that is often associated with limited releases and reselling — an industry that’s valued at a billion dollars itself. Aside from eBay, a relatively big reseller name is Grailed, which is an app and website aimed at buying and selling high-end and limited edition goods. Its founder and CEO Arun Gupta noticed that there wasn’t a one-stop-shop for men to browse items they lust for, while easily discovering new brands. He also noticed that reseller accounts at the time were relatively hard to find and not necessarily user-friendly, so he developed Grailed. Racked talks to Gupta about the platform, and where menswear is headed. Read on to learn more.

What kind of guy is using Grailed and what are they buying?

The Grailed guy is generally very purposeful about the clothing they wear. Sometimes they are looking for luxury items at affordable prices and other times they are looking for a better deal than they could find in the mall. Some are looking to add to their collections. Though they have a range of styles, Grailed users are typically savvy consumers who realize their dollar goes twice as far in a community marketplace such as ours.

Grailed is making something that was once nerdy and insider-y much easier for the layman to use and understand. Do you think the site is helping people seek out new brands and try new things?

It makes trying new things much less risky. Previously if I wanted to try out an A.P.C. coat it would have run me ~$600 at a boutique. Now you can find that same coat (and others like it) on Grailed for less than $200. Plus if you don’t end up liking it for whatever reason, you can always resell it to someone else and make your money back.

The homepage feed also makes it extremely easy to scroll for pages and discover new brands. Everything on Grailed has been curated twice: Once by the buyer who purchased it in the store, and then a second time by us when they post it to the website. This process results in the Grailed catalog being only the most desirable items so it’s pretty fun to scroll through.

How does the site’s relationships with people like Ian Connor help brand awareness?

Ian represents a new generation of fashion conscious youth. These days more and more young people are expressing their personalities through the clothes they wear. Our mission is to help people find and afford pieces that would otherwise be inaccessible to them. That is something that definitely resonates with Ian and the youth consumer, which has absolutely contributed to our growth.

Can you explain the concept behind the Grailed 100?
The Grailed 100 was our first opportunity to showcase our voice and demonstrate our taste as a company. We collected 100 of the most sought after menswear pieces from recent history and shot our own editorial and product photography. We released them for sale at grailed.com/100, highlighting the details and stories of why these pieces are relevant. In essence it was a distilled version of what our marketplace represents: clothes you’ve always wanted, at a price that is surprisingly affordable.

Is this the new way to shop? Are people OK with paying a little more to not wait in a line? Are they OK with paying less to wear something that is slightly used?

Grailed is definitely a different way to shop for a lot of people. We see much less of a stigma towards buying used, a sentiment that has definitely grown in the past few years as more and more people shop second hand. Not to mention, a community like ours really respects the garments themselves, which is evident in every piece that changes hands.

Our users see real value in buying items at lower prices and also being able to find pieces from past seasons that they may have missed. Even if something is still out of their price range it’s easy to defray the cost by selling a piece they don’t wear anymore. The reselling culture is a different animal, but it’s pretty clear from the success of our Hype section that plenty of people are willing to pay a bit above retail for convenience and availability.