Last year, after 16 years in the industry, during which Zhang had been a department store manager, a brand manager and had started an e-commerce business, he went to Silicon Valley, California, scouting for ideas.

Zhang had become jaded by the fashion world, feeling that something was missing, that it was beginning to show its wear and tear.

"Looking back at my career, I realized what I wanted was to rediscover the innovation that is the very basis of the fashion industry and keeps it moving."

In Silicon Valley Zhang was fortunate to run into Hyman and Fleiss, who told him of how they had watched clothes sharing - an idea that a decade earlier might have seemed preposterous in the richest country on the planet - become part of the fabric.

What Zhang learned from the pair was that there were many more consumer hot buttons to be pushed than the very practical idea of being able to rent dresses. For example, Zhang says, hanging in many a closet is stark evidence of economic short-term thinking: expensive dresses, jackets and coats that do not earn their keep because they have only been worn once or twice.