Bebelian sells used goods from Indonesian celebs, gives new meaning to secondhand shopping

As the former executive fashion and beauty editor at Indonesia’s Femina magazine, Khairiyyah Sari naturally found herself with everything related to branded apparel and accessories, particularly handbags. Her work in the media also allowed her rare access to the nation’s exclusive pool of models, actresses, and celebrities who were deeply entrenched in the archipelago’s fast-moving fashion world.

Having cultivated relationships with many socialites and famous women, those in Indonesia’s fashion and beauty industry came to endearingly know her by one name; Sari. In mid-2011, however, the editor resigned from her safe and cushy media job to chase down a daring ecommerce dream. Today, her company is known as Bebelian. The vision: to sell branded, fashionable apparel and accessories that were pre-owned by Indonesian celebrities.

Sari explains:

On eBay, I found Hollywood celebrities putting their goods up to be auctioned. I then thought, Indonesia should have a place that sells items previously owned by celebrities. Because I knew a lot of them, I was sure they had a lot stuff that they rarely used. And certainly, there were many fans out there who wanted a piece of their style, right?

See: Run by celebrities, Indonesian fashion ecommerce site 8Wood pulls seed funding

A not-so-arbitrary transition

Realizing she couldn’t do it alone, Sari invited her friend Dewi Rezer – an Indonesian model, TV presenter, and actress – to help develop the company. Now a two-woman operation, Bebelian had an even deeper network of celebs it could tap into for secondhand goods. Sari went right to work creating the site and populating it with content, while Rezer helped legitimize the business and build buzz in the right circles.

As a fashion journalist, Sari had the advantage of knowing the space in which she was starting up very well. She already knew that people in Indonesia bought branded apparel that was pre-owned by celebrities, but that there wasn’t a formal place where people were doing it.

She also knew that there was no website that was specializing in pre-owned celebrity handbags. With this in mind, she decided to focus her site solely on handbags in order to capture an early niche audience. She says: