Former Gilt Groupe execs launch plus-size brand

Dive Brief:

CoEdition, a pure-play apparel site featuring a curated collection of plus-size apparel from well known fashion designers, launched on Tuesday and announced a $4 million seed round.
The retailer was started by Gilt Groupe founder Keith George (who is CEO) and Gilt alums Brooke Cundiff (Chief Merchandising Officer) and Kent Helbig (Chief Operating Officer & Chief Technology Officer) along with Kevin Ryan, who has launched several tech companies. The funding round was led by NEA and included General Catalyst, Primary and BBG Ventures, according to a company press release emailed to Retail Dive.
At launch, the retailer offers goods from Rachel Roy, Stuart Weitzman, Tahari, Warp + Weft, Margaux, and international brands City Chic and Elvi. The plan is to grow this year to more than 150 contemporary brands in apparel, shoes, swim, intimates and accessories, with an average price point of $150, the company said.

Dive Insight:

Apparel retail and fashion designers in general have been pretty stubborn in ignoring plus-size couture. It's been left to the likes of Project Runway host Tim Gunn to advocate for better fashion and e-commerce site Elloquii to prove that there's a market.

And there's a market. According to the NPD Group, U.S. sales of women's plus-size apparel, (which includes plus-size/full-figure, petite plus and junior plus sizes), rose 5% in 2014 to $19.8 billion, and 3% in 2015 to $20.4 billion. Overall, the plus-size market accounted for 17% of the U.S. women's apparel market in 2015, according to NPD Group's Consumer Tracking Service.

That's a lot of money and a lot of women to ignore, CoEdition's founders say. "The majority of American women are size 10 or higher," Cundiff said in a statement. "Yet traditional retailers don't cater to them. They limit their selection and push their offerings into a corner of the women's floor or bury it at the bottom of their web page."

"We want to change this, starting now," Cundiff added.

The group, perhaps because of their affiliation with Gilt, which struggled after the downfall of the flash sales model before it sold to Hudson's Bay's Saks unit, has attracted funding out of the gate. Venture capitalists may be coming around to the market's potential. As another example, Eloquii (originally founded by The Limited in 2011, but after being quickly discontinued was revived by Limited employees as a pure-play retailer in 2014) in 2016 announced a $15 million Series B round of funding.

CoEdition will use funds from its seed round to build customer awareness and loyalty "through several marketing channels" as well as recruit a team of merchants, software developers and data scientists, the company said.