s, curating the best in fashion. Our circular ecosystem breaks down barriers to buying and selling slow fashion. It's a game-changer. Through our curation and care of premium products, together we can make second hand the first choice.

Dr Henry McNeill-Njoku is a lifelong car boot sale enthusiast. He has been a key player in the UK second hand fashion scene since founding HMS Vintage, a reputable online vintage shop, back in 2015. Over the years, Henry became more and more disillusioned with the selling experience on existing second hand platforms, becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack of innovation, appreciation for 'top sellers' and the sea of low-quality items drowning out his high-quality stock.

Theo El-Kattan has been a frequent buyer of second hand since he was a kid. Growing tired of the oversaturated platform feeds, Theo feels that too much trash drains the user experience with an incoherent onslaught of low-quality items. All he wants is quality. He's a simple man.

Lilian Weiermann was a shortlisted finalist for the previous Fashion Values competition with her fashion-education platform The Stitch and joined a FV webinar as a panellist alongside UNEP’s Rachel Arthur and Johannes Reponen. Besides her MA Innovation Management studies at Central Saint Martins, Lilian joined the Known Source team bringing in her expertise in sustainability and marketing.

Social media/website link
Website: https://www.knownsource.co.uk ,
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knownsource_official/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/known-source

Your personal profile and motivations in applying to the Challenge
We created Known Source to bring together a community of established second hand sellers (“Dealers”) on one platform. Together, we are taking second hand fashion to the forefront of culture. With a 400% increase in clothing consumption in the past 20 years and a massive need to tackle landfills clocked with clothing, the Fashion Values challenge is the ideal programme to change the way we consume fashion.
By joining the challenge, we are excited to extend our network of changemakers to collectively dismantle the current linear fashion industry. Furthermore, we are motivated to join the challenge as it allows us to holistically act upon our understanding of sustainability in fashion. Rooted in community, we value the Fashion Values network as a collaborative force to tackle fashion’s waste problem that is currently straining planetary and human health.

Your educational background
Henry McNeill: Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery, UCL
Theo El-Kattan: Spanish with Management Studies, UCL
Lilian Weiermann: MA Innovation Management, Central Saint Martins UAL
Have you been nominated to apply? If yes, who nominated you?
Yes. Siân Sutherland
Business Name: Known Source LTD
Years in business: 2-3 years
Project Title: An Authentication Software for Second Hand Garments to Reduce the Barriers of Second Hand Consumption
Project stage: Sketch

Description of your idea (up to 100 words):

The only way to prevent second hand fashion from polluting landfills is to make it circular. With a 400% increase in clothing consumption in the past 20 years and 360,000 tonnes of reusable clothes ending up in landfills yearly, a systemic transition to circular consumption is paramount.

This project will introduce Re-Source, as a first-of-its-kind authentication software for second hand garments, innovating the primarily linear second hand market. Our transformational authentication technology has the potential to be applied industry-wide, paving new ways for people to trust in second hand fashion thereby lowering the barriers of circular consumption.

A detailed description of your idea (up to 500 words) (Image 3):

Known Source is a creative startup supporting the fashion industry's transition to a circular model.

Driven by our goal to make circularity equitable, Known Source is circular by design, as users can send back any purchase at any point in the future through a feature called 'Renew'. Known Source will 'sell on' the preloved products, allowing items to stay within our circular ecosystem instead of ending up in landfills. Our 'Circular Curated' model breaks down barriers to buying and selling second hand fashion.

The core of our application is to create a data solution, called Re-Source, that further enhances and automates the authentication process of second hand garments.

Digital authentication will help fight counterfeit, encourage sustainability habits among consumers and unlock increased resale growth. A comprehensive data solution does not currently exist due to data gaps. Collating the historical data for each brand is a key challenge in creating a comprehensive solution (World Economic Forum). Our solution is powered by our unique access to years’ worth of authentic data from our existing established seller community.

Re-Source, as a first-of-its-kind authentication software for second hand garments, innovates the primarily linear second hand market. Considering that the fashion resale market is expected to grow 127% by 2026 (ThredUp), it is crucial to set up the foundations for this vastly growing market.

With the potential to reduce the time to authenticate and evaluate an item by 80%, Re-Source will allow one employee to authenticate 420 items a day accurately. Moreover, the software will authenticate items with a 99.9% accuracy, which is the ultimate enabling factor for Known Source to introduce the 'Simply Sell' feature.

‘Simply Sell’ will be a new revenue stream responding to changing market conditions for users to buy, sell and renew second hand confidently. With this new revenue stream, Known Source opens our circular ecosystem to any piece of clothing that deserves a second life. Users simply send us pictures of the item, and utilising our Re-Source, we offer a price based on the item's condition and value. We then pay the user up front, with the aim for users to receive the money within 12 hours of taking a picture of their garments, making selling seamless and reducing barriers to consuming circularly.

Before being applied to the 'Simply Sell' feature, Re-Source will be trialled and validated using the comprehensive dataset from our existing community of established sellers, which will represent real-world scenarios and train the AI model.

Re-Source and ‘Simply Sell’ dismantle a linear system while empowering individuals to become circular consumers. With its focus to reduce the tremendous waste problem within the rapidly growing second hand fashion market, our project is part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

Moreover, our transformational authentication technology also has the potential to be applied industry-wide, paving new ways for people to trust in second hand fashion and be a circular consumer, which will further tackle fashion’s waste and abundance problems and benefit human and planetary health.