The Tech Fashion Darling Accused of Swindling Investors Out of $300 Million

Christine Hunsicker was in her friend’s Palo Alto, California, backyard in 2011 wondering how every woman could have the kind of infinite clothing closet she’d grown up with. As a kid in rural Pennsylvania, her family wasn’t particularly wealthy, yet she was always playing dress-up in outfits, like a penguin-print maxi dress or a shimmering sequin skirt, made by her seamstress aunt. A clothing-rental subscription company could be a blockbuster business, she thought. She even had a name for it, inspired by a character from a book she’d once imagined but never wrote: Gwynnie Bee.

Hunsicker was obsessed with Rent the Runway—the startup that had sparked the clothing-rental category two years earlier. Gwynnie Bee would essentially be the same idea, just for a different crowd. Rather than renting out designer evening wear and office essentials, she’d focus on zany styles such as psychedelic flower-print moto jackets and paint-splatter dresses for plus-size women.