BCBUSINESS.CA APRIL 2017 BCBUSINESS 37
L I F E S T O RY: As an only child
whose parents were active in the
Chilliwack community (her father,
now a city councillor, was president
of the local business improvement
association), Chloe Popove was taken
to events before she turned two. "By
five they had me helping and sticking
glitter on things," she recalls. In
elementary school, Popove bought
bulk candy at H.Y. Louie and sold it to
neighbourhood kids from the family ga-
rage. Then, noticing the price of curly
willow branches in plant stores, she
took discarded prunings from her dad's
garden and sold them house-to-house,
earning enough to buy a new bike.
When Popove was 19, she moved
to Vancouver and worked at Lululemon
Athletica Inc. after earning a diploma
in public relations from Kwantlen Poly-
technic University. That job led her to
launch an online clothing consignment
store, My Modern Closet, in 2015, to
raise awareness of the harmful effects
of fast fashion and to reduce waste by
making it simple, affordable and stylish
to choose consigned clothing over
buying new. She and her staff pick up
consigned items, provide payout within
24 hours and ship garments purchased
from the 550 displayed online to
anywhere in North America.
T H E B O T T O M L I N E : My
Modern Closet has grown from a one-
woman enterprise in a 500-square-
foot apartment to a 900-square-foot
Gastown studio with five part-time
employees and five freelance writers.
Popove plans to expand to 12 full-time
staff by boosting online revenue to
more than $500,000 a year. —F.S.
C H L O E
P O P O V E
Founder and owner
MY MODERN CLOSET
A G E : 2 8
