Circle of Friends: Devyn Olin, Founder of Cache
find out your closet's net worth, the new platform for fashion resale, and her list of favorite vintage shops
Circle of Friends interviews expand on the stoop series for a deeper look into the life and businesses of those doing cool things in circularity. This week’s guest is Devyn Olin, co-founder and CEO of Cache, an app that makes reselling clothes as easy as buying them
Devyn and I met at an event, and we instantly connected over her name tag, which said “vintage Pucci dress,” an answer to the prompt of “your most recent purchase.” But just how are we buying vintage and reselling our clothes these days? This is a common question in the fashion substack chats with the overarching theme—Why is reselling your clothes so difficult and one-dimensional?
As a lawyer with an MBA and years of experience in the fashion industry–from content creation at ELLE.com to e-commerce at Moda Operandi and brand strategy at Métier Creative, Devyn co-founded Cache to solve for the pain points we have all felt trying to resell our clothing.
I’ve been beta-testing Cache for the last few months and I’m excited about so many features all wrapped into one platform including:
Clothing resale where I can share my storefront with anyone even if they aren’t on Cache yet - here is some of my vintage for sale right now!
Insights into your closet net-worth
Creation of clothing playlists- great for packing lists or sharing dresses a friend could borrow
The ability to instantly build your digital closet - when you sign up, you connect your email and Cache automatically processes and imports items from your purchase receipts
Join the waitlist to be the first to find out when Cache launches!
What is your origin story of how you started Cache, were there personal pain points you wanted to solve for? And where does the name Cache come from?
The driving force behind the inception of Cache is the insight that women trade clothes, not stocks. Therefore, how can you make a woman’s closet a more optimal, efficient, and tradable portfolio of assets?
Currently, resale is such a clunky and frustrating process. Even with existing technological solutions, many–like myself–do not want to spend the time to photograph items, write listing descriptions, upload listings to multiple peer-to-peer marketplaces, and/or spend hours schlepping bags full of stuff to, often times, multiple consignment, thrift, or vintage stores. Not to mention, even those who do spend the time typically complain about the meager return on their investment (I have actually heard from multiple people of $4 payouts on their $300+ “New With Tags” items sold on other resale sites).
It baffled me that in a day and age where the ability to make a purchase is nearly instantaneous, resale has not kept pace with the speed of consumption. I knew there had to be a better way. That’s why I built Cache.
Cache does the heavy lifting so users don’t have to. Users sign up, connect their emails, and Cache imports and processes all purchase receipts to find relevant items. Cache matches items to enriched data, giving the user a “virtual closet” with the original product photos, sizing, measurements and details.
When a user is ready to resell, Cache posts items directly to existing marketplaces, eliminating the need for users to take photos, write listings, and cross-list themselves (in other words, the friction).
In technical terms, the cache is where your browser stores all sorts of data (images, fonts, etc.) so that your browser runs faster. Similarly, with Cache, we store your clothing in a virtual closet to let you resell clothing faster. The name, pronounced “cash”, is also a double entendre: We help you earn money for the things you no longer wear or want. Hence, our tagline, Cache in your closet.
Not 1, but 2, suede fringe jackets for sale in my Cache storefront !!
I started this substack to encourage my community to buy less and borrow more. The ability to share my closet to show friends what I have to offer which they can borrow is my favorite feature of Cache. How else can Cache make getting dressed, shopping, and reselling a social and community experience while remaining online?
On Cache, every user has their own personal Storefront. When you list an item for sale, it will live on your Storefront, a shareable link. That link can be shared with anyone–someone does not have to be a user of Cache to shop your Storefront. Our goal in building Cache this way was to mimic what we already saw happening on social media. Many people are taking advantage of existing platforms like Instagram to post “closet sales” or create separate accounts dedicated to selling their clothes.
We all have these existing networks that we don’t take advantage of for commercial purposes like resale, whether that be on Instagram, Substack, etc. While we are also building out integrations allowing users to post listings to third-party marketplaces as well, we hope that the Storefront feature allows users to cut out the middleman where possible and avoid massive fees while reselling to friends and friends of friends.
In addition, we are developing social capabilities whereby users can follow and interact directly with other users’ closets. This will allow users to get dressed “together, apart” and seek inspiration and reviews from others’ closets. Already, users can create “Playlists” to share groupings of items with friends as well as “Fits”–a Canva-style way to mix and match outfits.
Finally, Cache is all about optimizing resale. We want to connect buyers and sellers through data and AI and based on supply and demand. Imagine–you have a Chanel double flap in your closet that you were thinking of reselling. We want to be able to inform you of the best time to resell based on going market rates, and perhaps even find you the buyer through our enhanced store of data.
How can other Cache features help optimize your closet, save money, and keep clothes out of landfills?
A neat feature of Cache is the ability to see the net worth of what you own. We show users the net worth of their closet and Fits. When users create outfits, we tell them how much that Fit is worth. However, users can also create Fits using items they own (in their Cache closet) as well as items they are still coveting (which are saved in their Cache wishlist). Cache will also calculate how much you still need to spend to “complete” an outfit when that Fit involves things you don’t yet own.
The rationale behind the net worth is that if someone knows how much her clothes are worth, she can resell them to support other things she might be saving for or budgeting for (next month’s rent, a trip to Paris, reformer pilates, overpriced lattes…). We often justify purchases by saying it is an “investment” piece. All jokes aside, many items do have a resale value, and we need to start looking at resale as an opportunity to put our “assets” to work for us. Girl math isn’t just a mindset and a trend, it’s a chance to generate and optimize for value.
Over 95% of the clothing thrown away in the US can be recycled or reused, yet more than 85% ends up in landfills. Resale is better for your wallet and the planet. The effort involved in resale simply needs to be worth the reward, or rather, with Cache, we aim to minimize the amount of effort entirely. Not to mention, the ability to view your friends’ Playlists is an opportunity to swap and lend clothes with others (another alternative which is preferable to outright disposal or donation).
What is your best secondhand score or most cherished pre-loved piece?
My most cherished pre-loved piece is a blue sapphire ring that I wear every day. My great-grandfather was a taxi driver and once found this ring left in the back of his cab. He gave it to my mom, who has since passed it down to me (among her other vintage treasures). I love it almost as much as I love the story behind it.
Besides Cache, what are your go-to spots for shopping second and reselling?
One of my hobbies is finding vintage stores when traveling and making Google Maps lists for those stores in each city. There are probably too many places to even recount, but I will list some highlights and hopefully, there is a special find for everyone!
Toronto (my home base!): VSP Consignment, PIC Vintage, Smoking Vintage, Shop Coat, and markets (Hippie Market, Good Friends Market, and Sunday Variety Market)
NYC: Reformation Vintage (also in LA), Seven Wonders Collective, Beacon’s Closet, Ritual Vintage, and James Veloria
London: Found and Vision, Serotonin Vintage, Nordic Poetry, and Brick Lane Vintage Market
Paris: Chez Snow Bunny, Irregular Vintage, Iglaine Vintage (this place blew my mind!!), and Thanx God I’m a V.I.P.
Austin: Moss Designer Consignment, Garment Modern + Vintage, and Passport Vintage
Italy: Aloe & Wolf (a goldmine in the middle of Siena)
Montreal: Seconde Vintage, Ruse Consignment
Thanks for reading, I really do appreciate it! You can see Devyn’s stoop series interview here and ff you want to attend a Circle of Friends event, please sign up here!
Just signed up for the waitlist! Also - Nordic Poetry in London is the besttttt <3
Loved collaborating with you on this!