Project Cece, the online sustainable fashion marketplace based in Amsterdam is in news again as the women-led startup has announced about its plans to expand to the United Kingdom. Project Cece is an online search engine that collects sustainable clothing from small and large ethical webshops in one online overview where it is easy to browse through different items.
By launching in the UK, Project Cece hopes to help consumers make the switch away from fast-fashion by making it easier to find ethical clothing of their choice. It was only last month, when the Dutch startup received fresh funds of under €50,000 from Amsterdam Student Investment Fund (ASIF), which is a student-run Venture Capital (VC) fund. This was the second investment by ASIF ventures after it invested in a fast-growing fintech startup from Amsterdam, Dyme.
Why UK?
Britons are known to be avid shoppers and fast-fashion lovers. However, the UK is also home to many sustainable brands that try to make a difference and more and more people do want the fashion industry to change. Public opinion is slowly switching in favour of ethical fashion and Project Cece is launching in the UK to accelerate this process.
So, how does it work?
Project Cece uses in-house developed web tools to automatically collect the products of all these sustainable webshops on one website, giving you a complete overview of all available ethical clothing. With insightful icons, to-the-point descriptions and filters, Project Cece helps consumers find clothing that fits their style, budget, and values.
Female founders with a mission
Project Cece was founded by three students: the sisters Marcella and Melissa Wijngaarden and Noor Veenhoven. When they realised the large negative impact the fashion industry really has for people and the environment, they decided to make the switch to sustainable fashion. But finding ethical clothing turned out to be not as easy as finding fast-fashion, for which you can use sites with large collections such as Zalando.
Marcella, who had just finished a minor in programming, was fed up with having to search for hours through different webshops just to find a simple sustainable top that fitted her style and budget. “This should be easier, there should be a website that brings it all together, like an Amazon of conscious clothing.” said Marcella, “If such a website does not exist I will build it myself!” And so she did.
One year later Project Cece launched in the Netherlands. The founders had a simple goal: making it easy and fun to buy sustainable fashion. If more consumers decide to buy sustainable fashion, the fashion industry has no choice but to change.
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