LONDON — When Coco Baraer Panazza went to start her luxury rental platform, Cercle, it was a result of professional and personal experiences.
She has spent the last 11 years living in seven countries, from France, U.S. to the U.K., where she’s now based.
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“I always had one rule when moving, if I move somewhere under a year, I take one suitcase, if I move somewhere for over a year, I take two suitcases, one for winter and one for summer. I’ve naturally been forced to live a minimalist lifestyle,” said the French-born businesswoman on a Zoom call.
Panazza’s educational background spans international hospitality management, international business and brand management from University of Brighton, Grenoble Ecole de Management and the Fashion Institute of Technology.
She started her career at Network Showroom as a wholesale associate account executive driving sales with a focus on Europe and the Asia-Pacific region before moving to the concierge company Quintessentially as a lifestyle manager, moving up to global business development manager and then head of commercial partnerships before leaving in August 2020 to start Cercle.
The idea for the rental platform was born out of the key challenges that the brands she was meeting with were facing, such as “how to acquire new clients, keeping the loyalty of top clients and engaging with them even more, and how to behave more sustainably.”
“It felt like there was a real gap in the market for a rental proposition that would bring the luxury experience to the market,” said Panazza, who has based Cercle on five key points: convenience, curation, community, circularity and charity.
The rental platform is different to what’s on offer right now on the rental market. The approach Cercle has is not to “dilute” a brand’s image, which is why each designer on the website has a maximum of six items.
The website stocks Prada, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, Loewe, Missoni, Galvan, Khaite and more.
The items for rental are made up of Panazza’s own personal pieces, as well as those from her community, where anyone can sign up to list their items, which gets approved by Panazza and her team.
Cercle’s initiative is to give back by partnering with different charities, such as the British Red Cross and The Pink Ribbon Foundation, offering lenders the opportunity to donate portions of their profit to a chosen charity or one of their choice.
Panazza cites eBay and Airbnb as early inspirations for the rental platform, one which her friends found “weird,” she said. When she moved to London in 2018, she went on a renting safari trying out all the platforms.
In her research, she found that all the items on rental platforms were trend-led rather than brand classics.
Cercle closed a run of funding with investors last March.
The next challenge for Panazza and her small team is expanding the sizing that’s available on the website because she wants it to be an inclusive platform. She’s consistently on the hunt for new people with either eccentric or classic wardrobes to sign up to Cercle and list their items.
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