If you’ve indulged in a bit of online shopping over the past few years, you’ve surely come across the name Afterpay. Afterpay, which was founded by Nick Molnar in Australia at the age of 24, is now one of the most favored payment-plan options. At 30, Molnar was named Australia’s youngest self-made billionaire, and now he’s making it his mission to support the next generation of talent in the industry that helped build his fortune.
Afterpay (aka Clearpay) was the primary sponsor of the Australian Fashion Week, New York Fashion Week and London Fashion Week in the past season. During what has been a challenging time for the industry, that assistance was a game changer for both emerging and established talents—from Molnar’s countryman Jordan Dalah, known for his exaggerated, ruffly shapes; to Sarah Staudinger of the hit contemporary brand Staud; to Michael Halpern of Halpern, who cast members of the Royal Ballet in his spring 2022 spectacular.
LaQuan Smith, a New York designer, was able to reach even higher heights thanks to the support. His spring runway for 2022 was held on the Empire State Building observation deck. After a COVID-induced absence from IRL shows, “I wanted to come back in a big way,” Smith says, “and felt so blessed to not only show at the venue of my dreams but add exciting new elements,” including his first see-now, buy-now collection. Joseph Altuzarra was able, via livestream, to give his customers access to his spring 2022 show. Customers could also shop directly from the runway and pay by installments through the service. The designer calls it a way to “democratize consumers’ access to fashion.”
Molnar’s roots in the industry run deep. When he was still an undergraduate at Sydney University, Molnar was running his own retail company selling jewelry out of his bedroom. At the same time, he noticed that his generation preferred debit cards to credit and reluctance in using credit. Molnar’s daily runs to the post office sparked the curiosity of a neighbor, Anthony Eisen, who happened to have a background in financial services and became Afterpay’s cofounder. Square announced that it would acquire the company for $29 billion last August.
The installment payment model isn’t new but it has been criticized by some users who reported overdraft fees, late charges, and other issues. (“It sounds too good to be true, and it is, in many ways, because there are perils for people who use this,” Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, told the Los Angeles TimesLast year. Molnar says the model is safer than credit for many customers. “We built a product that was completely free for consumers who pay on time, which means that it’s not a line of credit, it’s not a loan, and we don’t have to do soft or hard credit checks or upsell someone to a line of finance,” he says.
His goal for the future: “building an economy where everyone wins.” And this season, his crop of runway protégés was definitely among those winners.
This article appears on the February 2022 issue.
Source: elle