Dora Maar Founder Lauren Wilson Is Bringing Storytelling To Luxury Fashion Consignment

Lauren Wilson has long been fascinated by the lives that clothes lead: the places they come from, the distances they travel, the events they attend, the moments of history they witness, and the people whose bodies they grace. Each dress, coat, or pair of shoes, she believes, carries a lifetime of stories and experiences that not only validate its value but add to it as well.

It was while working in marketing at Christie’s that Wilson first saw this in action, as it pertained to all sorts of luxury items that arrived on the auction block. “What became such a crucial learning for me at that time is this idea of provenance,” she recalls. “When purchasing any piece from this famed auction house, it was crucial to provide the client with the provenance of the piece—a record of where it had been throughout its life. Not having this record, one could wonder if the piece was authentic or what was its actual value.” Wilson found that this same concept of provenance, however, was totally absent from the secondary luxury fashion market.

Soon after her time at Christie’s, she moved on to Moda Operandi, an early pioneer in the shifting landscape of luxury fashion e-commerce, and realized the need for a platform in the resale space that could tell the story behind each piece of clothing. “I saw firsthand how the founder of Moda Operandi, Lauren Santo Domingo’s influence inspired her clients purchasing decisions, and one of the most successful edits was called ‘Lauren’s Closet,’ where clients had a sneak peek into her favorite pieces from the most recent season’s collections,” Wilson explains. “Given my background in art and fashion and my recent M.A. in Costume Studies, I knew that I wanted to launch a place where millions of women could shop the items from the actual closets of these tastemakers.”

Just a few months later, Wilson left her job at Moda to devote all her time and attention to creating a place that inspired consumers and emphasized discovery and storytelling. “I was naturally nervous to launch a business of my own, especially since I was starting from the ground up,” she remembers. “Yet, I knew I needed to create something new, particularly because there was so much growth in the market. It was a now or never moment.” And in late 2019, Wilson’s efforts came to fruition when she launched Dora Maar, an online destination for preowned luxury fashion that curates pieces through the closets of muses.

Read on to learn about Dora Maar’s mission, its place in the worlds of luxury fashion and sustainability, and why its founder believes personalization and storytelling are the keys to success.

Gabby Shacknai: How did you come up with the name Dora Maar, and what is its significance?

Lauren Wilson: Henriette Theodora Markovitch, known as Dora Maar, was a famous French surrealist artist whom I named my platform after. I studied Art History while abroad in Paris during college, and I always admired her photography, fine art, and poetry. While many people have known Dora Maar as Pablo Picasso’s muse, she was actually my point of inspiration for her trailblazing ways. Surrealism challenges norms and looks at things from a different perspective, similar to our brand ethos at Dora Maar.

Shacknai: One of the things that really sets Dora Maar apart from its competitors is its focus on storytelling. Why is that such an important part of the puzzle?

Wilson: Luxury is essentially storytelling. When you lose the storytelling aspect, you’re missing the whole craft and quality of luxury fashion, and basically stripping away its unique identity. Clothing is just like art. The brands, the designers, and the women and men who wear the clothes—the Muses—embody luxury fashion’s transformative abilities. I wanted consumers to be empowered with the knowledge of exactly what they are buying. Knowing that history, I believe, will enable us to all think twice about disposing of fashion season after season.

Shacknai: So often, fashion resale, even at the high end, puts distance between the previous owner and the prospective buyer, while luxury auction houses tend to do the opposite. Why did you decide to take note from the latter and feature Muses on Dora Maar?

Wilson: Fashion has been treated as a commodity on the second-hand market. It was crazy to me to see a McQueen dress on display at the Costume Institute at the Met, and then to see that same dress haphazardly listed on some discount website. How was this sort of model going to actually shift consumer mindset if it looks and acts like a disposable, replaceable commodity? What auction houses do so incredibly well is dig so deep into a piece’s history and provenance through their expert specialists that it essentially becomes priceless. You would never throw it away. But how do we do this at scale and for e-commerce? For us, it’s the Muse concept and their expertise.

There is also this great sense of collaboration between our Muses. One of our favorite things to do is what we call “Muse Mashups,” which is an Instagram Live series where we have our Muses style their closet with items from other Muse closets. I love this idea of building your wardrobe with pieces that represent such a rich cross-section of people and experiences. 

Shacknai: Who can be a Muse? How do you go about selecting them?

Wilson: Our Muses are inspiring tastemakers of all different shapes, sizes, and voices, who hold a deep love for fashion. We look for people who care about the craft and quality of clothing and want to see longevity in the items they’ve worn. All of the content we collaborate on with our Muses is to help them share their story. This ranges from behind-the-scenes interviews cheekily called ‘Behind the Dor’ and UGC content about what trends they wish would could back (skinny jeans, from our newest Muse, Alyssa Campanella) to photo shoots in our Brooklyn HQ.

Last Fall, we would feature one Muse a month. Steadily, that has grown to multiple Muses a week. We’re also having repeat Muses, like Natalie Steen of @thenatnote, who just launched her closet for a third time with us. In fact, over 50% of Muses reconsign within a few months.

Something that is really special to being a Dora Maar Muse and something we plan to integrate even more into our platform is the opportunity for Muses to sell their closet for a good cause. Many of our Muses use their proceeds from their closet sales to raise funds for organizations that are important in their lives. For example, Lauren Levison recently donated 100% of her proceeds to the Present/Levison Advanced Fellowship in Inflammatory Bowel Disease at Mount Sinai Hospital. To our customers, Muses have become like mini-brands. Our clients eagerly wait for new Muse drops in the same way that they would await a collection drop, so much so that we recently started private previews for loyal customers to shop Muse drops first.

Shacknai: Who is the typical Dora Maar customer?

Wilson: Interestingly, many of our customers are new to buying resale, which I love to hear! When customers tell me this is their first preowned luxury piece, I know we are headed in the right direction. We have built this incredibly loyal customer base, many of whom I have come to know quite well this year, virtually. The main reason our customers continue to come back is because they find it exciting to discover the newest Muse and what treasures lie behind her closet door. The sense of surprise and urgency is what drives our concept forward. Customers start to feel connected to the Muses. They’ll start following the Muses closets and they await Muse closet drops in the same way one would await a shoe drop.

Shacknai: How do you explain the ongoing resale boom we’re experiencing?

Wilson: A lot of factors play into the recent resale boom. First and foremost, consumers are prioritizing sustainability, and purchasing preowned is leaps and bounds better than purchasing off of the primary market. I also think the pandemic really put into sharp focus this idea of intentionality and transparency. People want to know where their items are coming from. That trust aspect is crucial in resale given the widespread nature of the counterfeit industry. Authenticity is one of the main roadblocks in the growth of resale, and it’s something my team and I want to tackle. We are fortunate that our Muses provide a great deal of trust to our customers when they are purchasing. We bring all inventory in house before it is listed on site so that our team can take an in-depth look at each item, but we are also looking at emerging technologies that can help to augment and tangibilize these authenticity practices in step with our Muses.

Shacknai: What do you think is the future of luxury fashion resale, and what role will Dora Maar play in it?

Wilson: The resale market is evolving for the better, and I anticipate continued growth. I think resale is going to become a lot more accessible to every customer, no matter where you are in the world. For example, we’re even seeing major mass-market brands start to integrate resale into their business models.

I think as we expand our Muse network, whether they be macro- or micro-influencers, we can play a role in educating their friends and followers on the importance of shopping with intention and securing lasting change in consumer behavior. I am excited that we have this massive opportunity at Dora Maar to provide a platform for influencers to become curators of their own “store fronts” and pave the way for an entirely new way of shopping. Moving forward, our mission is to continue to create a personalized experience for the customer within luxury, resale, and beyond. We want to be the conduit between our customers and our Muses and create a platform built on authenticity, trust, and the magic of fashion, of course.