15 minute read
THE RENTAL REVOLUTION
The Fashion Revolution
The fashion industry is in dire need of a sustainable makeover – and these pioneering London-based rental brands are leading the way to a greener future
Words LUCIANA BELLINI Image ROTARO
It’s no secret that the fashion industry is in crisis. By now, we’re all too aware of the devastating impact it’s having on the planet, as well as the depressing numbers that accompany that fact. The fashion industry accounts for around 10% of global carbon emissions and nearly 20% of wastewater, sucking up more energy than both aviation and shipping combined. Globally, we consume 80 billion pieces of clothing every year and currently have enough clothes on the planet to dress the next six generations. Something has to change, and fast. Cue the fashion rental revolution: spearheaded by a group of super savvy, London-based female entrepreneurs, it’s set to change the way we dress and shop forever.
The arrival of wardrobes for hire was the next logical step after the phenomenal success of the sharing economy, which made household names out of Airbnb and Uber. If you’ll happily rent a stranger’s home or jump in their car, why not borrow their clothes? A chic crop of businesses letting you do just that soon landed on the scene, like Hurr, a platform that allows you to rent sought-after pieces from brands including Rixo, Ganni and Gucci, and My Wardrobe HQ, which features new and past season designer items straight from the closets of some of London’s most stylish women, such as Alice Naylor-Leyland and Poppy Delevingne.
While many of these brands have been around for a few years, the sector took on a new lease of life during the pandemic. As traditional retail went into freefall, the second-hand market was booming, partly as a reaction against fast fashion and partly down to the sense of community many of these apps and businesses fostered. Hurr reported an 850% year-on-year growth from the start of the pandemic, while peer-to-peer fashion rental app By Rotation has seen a 750% increase in bookings since the beginning of the year. Then there’s the ‘Carrie effect’, with many attributing the recent
Eshita Kabra-Davies By Rotation
sharp rise in rentals to the fact that Carrie Symonds hired her exquisitely embroidered Costarellos wedding dress from My Wardrobe HQ, along with several of the key looks she wore during this summer’s G7 Summit in Cornwall. Suddenly, spending several thousand pounds on a bridal gown or a look that will likely only be worn once seemed ludicrously old-fashioned.
But not everyone thinks rental is the answer to fashion’s sustainability problems. A recent study in Finland revealed that renting clothes can actually be worse for the planet than throwing them away, due to the large amount of transportation and drycleaning involved with each transaction. However, several key figures in the industry were quick to point out that the study’s assumptions did not reflect the reality of the rental market in the UK, where companies strive to be as green as possible. My Wardrobe HQ, for example, uses cycle couriers and electric vans for their deliveries, as well as wet cleaning and liquid CO² cleaning to avoid the environmental impact of dry cleaning, while By Rotation doesn’t engage in dry-cleaning or deliveries at all, instead advising their customers to clean and deliver items themselves using their eco-friendly partnering solutions. “Renting fashion allows us to change our consumption habits by buying less, buying better, and sharing what is already in circulation,” says By Rotation founder Eshita Kabra-Davies. “I firmly believe that circular solutions such as resale and peerto-peer rental will be our way out.”
Perhaps the surest sign that rental fashion is here to stay is the investment by luxury brands. French luxury group Kering, who own Balenciaga, Yves Saint Laurent and Bottega Veneta, recently announced a significant investment in London-based high-end bag rental subscription service Cocoon, where you can hire totes and clutches by the likes of Chanel, Prada and Dior.
Then there’s the fact that some of the world’s most prestigious department stores have started to welcome rental businesses through their doors: Harrods has partnered with My Wardrobe HQ on their first ever rental edit, featuring feathered Huishan Zhang gowns and Rotate Birger Christensen mini dresses, while Hurr launched a pop-up space in Selfridges’ Contemporary Studio in February that not only became a permanent fixture, it also led the Oxford Street behemoth to launch its own digital designer fashion rental service, Selfridges Rental. Facilitated by Hurr, the service features key pieces from the current season hand-picked by the store’s expert buying team, which means you can now hire womenswear, menswear and accessories straight from the new collections of leading designers such as Burberry, Simone Rocha and Dries Van Noten, as well as emerging cult brands. It’s a huge step forward for the rental industry, which until now has focused mainly on past season statement pieces. But with the industry estimated to reach £2.3 billion by 2029, it’s no surprise everyone wants a piece of the action.
The Fashion Revolution Meet the five female founders who are on a mission to make fashion’s sustainability crisis a thing of the past
VICTORIA PREW Hurr
hurrcollective.club
“A s a millennial, I’m of a generation that doesn’t question shared ownership – I’ve witnessed the rise of disruptive tech first-hand,” says Hurr founder and CEO Victoria Prew. Recognised as one of Drapers “30 under 30”, the forwardthinking 28-year-old tipped the fashion industry on its head when she launched the brand in 2018, becoming the first to tap into the booming circular economy. A former chartered surveyor at property agent Knight Frank, Prew abandoned the corporate world to build the peer-to-peer wardrobe rental platform from scratch, starting with one line of code in a basement in Shoreditch. Hurr now works with more than 75 design partners, has more than 7,000 pieces available to rent and 115,000 users.
This is the place to come for of-themoment looks, whether you’re looking to snap up Lirika Matoshi’s Insta-viral strawberry-print dress for the weekend or a pair of psychedelic House of Sunny flares teamed with a Jacquemus bag for your next staycation.
The platform is home to a community of uber-stylish London taste-makers – dubbed ‘Hurr Girls’ – which includes Amelia Windsor, Venetia Falconer and Kim Hersov. The site also cleverly splits its stock into tightly curated edits depending on the occasion or time of year, with ‘wedding guest’ and ‘plus size’ two of the most searched lists.
While Prew started out in a bid to shake up the fashion industry, she was also on a mission to make it more sustainable. “In the UK alone, customers spend £2.7 billion on outfits they wear just once,” she says. “The industry is under pressure to do better and Hurr provides all of the shortcuts to a sustainable wardrobe.” Every part of their end-to-end rental process has been thoroughly thought out, from encouraging local collection and in-app communication to avoid unnecessary shipping, to their newly launched carbon calculator in partnership with CoGo, which shows they’ve helped save the equivalent in carbon of 8,000 trees being cut down or 1.2 million miles driven in a car.
The pioneering brand opened the UK’s first fashion rental pop-up in Belgravia in 2019 before launching their second in Selfridges earlier this year, which featured coveted pieces by the likes of Rixo, Ganni and Mara Hoffman. It proved so successful the department store has adopted it as a permanent fixture, Selfridges Rental, which offers current season stock for hire at a fraction of the retail price. Not one to rest on her laurels, Prew is currently fundraising and plans to expand internationally next year, while also aiming to double her team size in the next month. “We’ve now proven our product-market fit and have ambitious plans to turn Hurr into a fashion rental unicorn in the future,” she says.
ESHITA KABRA-DAVIES By Rotation
byrotation.club
Billed as the world’s first social rental fashion app, community is at the heart of everything By Rotation does. “Given my own background as a third culture kid, with roots in India, Singapore, the US and the UK, it was important for me to create something very inclusive,” explains founder Eshita Kabra-Davies. “I wanted to make it all about the regular consumer, as opposed to just fashion insiders.” The idea came about while she was planning what to wear for her honeymoon in India.
After researching the global fashion rental landscape and discovering firsthand the impact of textile waste in her hometown of Rajasthan, she set out to create a dedicated platform for fashion lovers where they could rotate what they owned with each other.
The app quickly garnered a cult following, perfectly tapping into the Gen-Z zeitgeist. They now have more than 85,000 users on board, including several high-profile influencers like Camille Charriere, Monikh Dale and Abisola Omole, and recently hosted their first physical pop-up at Westfield, which also featured rentable furniture and homewares from Studio Arva, from up-cycled sofas to the infamous Ultrafragola mirror.
But the real draw, according to Kabra-Davies, is the sense of friendship fostered through the app. Here’s a place you can rent the latest Daily Sleeper set or Dior Saddle bag and make a new pal in the process. It was this community spirit that convinced both dating app
Bumble and new motherhood meet-up platform Peanut to partner with By Rotation within its first year of launch. “We find that this human interaction – actually talking to someone who has worn the item and “There’s this feeling of camaraderie that goes beyond can tell you how it feels – is incomparable,” says Kabra-Davies. “There’s this feeling just a transactional exchange, and that’s something that is of camaraderie that goes beyond just a transactional exchange, hard to emulate" and that’s something that is hard to emulate.”
GEORGIE HYATT Rotaro
rotarohire.club
The newest addition to the fashion rental scene, Rotaro differs from many of the platforms in that there’s no peer-topeer element involved – instead, Rotaro work directly with sought-after brands to provide them with a way to rent their surplus stock. Founder Georgie Hyatt decided to launch the business after spotting a gap in the market when working in her previous role as a trend forecaster for WGSN. “I wanted to create a fashion solution, rather than contribute to a fashion problem,” she explains. “With Rotaro, our mission is to tackle overproduction on the brand’s end and overconsumption on the customer end.”
Their ethos is “buy good basics, rent good fun” and the brands on their platform reflect that, with a mix of emerging designers like Materiel Tbilisi (their slinky, silky dresses are currently rented backto-back for weeks) and Stine Goya alongside more established names including The Vampire’s Wife and JW Anderson. There’s a strong emphasis on eco-conscious brands, too, with sustainability a key focus. Hyatt has taken care to make every possible element of the business green, from their eco-friendly Ozone cleaning
service and carbon neutral DPD deliveries to their partnership with Ecologi, which sees them plant one tree for every rental and 500 trees for every new brand they bring on board.
Due to the fact that Rotaro only works directly with brands, hiring an outfit here is as close to a luxury e-commerce shopping experience as you’re going to get – think of it as the Net-a-Porter of the rental world. Whereas with peer-to-peer apps you can only rent pieces direct from fellow consumers in whatever size they happen to be, Rotaro has
all the current season pieces and cult favourites ranging in sizes from 6 to 16, as well as a Try-On at Home service. There are new product drops every week, with Zimmermann dresses and Cecilie Bahnsen blouses available from £15 for a four-day loan.
While their digital offerings continues to go from strength to strength, Rotaro dipped its toes into the world of retail this summer with their first pop-up store on Carnaby Street. The Soho space featured a carefully curated capsule collection available for rent, as well as smart screens where customers could browse the full online offering and have it delivered straight to their door. But true to Rotaro form, this was more than just a shop – the space also became a hub for creative workshops and panel discussions with sustainable thought leaders, while the walls were adorned with modernist works by female artists, provided by online accessible art platform Partnership Editions. It was the perfect physical depiction of everything the brand has managed to create online, and while the pop-up wasn’t permanent, something tells us that won’t be the case for long.
Rent it Right Now
Fashion platforms that will help you curate a chic and sustainable wardrobe
Front Row
Founded in 2016, Front Row is London’s first luxury designer rental destination. Working as a full lifestyle service, they have everyone from Stella McCartney and Versace to Zimmermann and Alessandra Rich on their books, as well as stylists on hand for expert advice. frontrow.uk.com
Bundlee
With babies outgrowing seven clothing sizes in just two years, dressing your little ones sustainably can be a challenge. Bundlee’s clever monthly subscription service curates a miniature capsule wardrobe for them, with brands including Mini Rodini and Mori, which you can swap out as soon as they’ve outgrown it. bundlee.co.uk
Kids O’Clock
Billed as the Vestiaire of childrenswear and founded by former Net-a-Porter, Moda Operandi and Harvey Nichols buyer Laura Roso Vidrequin, Kids O’Clock focuses on renting and recycling clothing for children and babies, and features brands like Chloé and Christian Dior alongside pieces from Zara and Petit Bateau. kidsoclock.co.uk
On Loan
At On Loan, the emphasis is on elevating the customer’s everyday wardrobe rather than focusing on occasion wear. Aiming to champion independent designers, they work independent designers, they work with brands like Shrimps, Joseph and with brands like Shrimps, Joseph and Mother of Pearl to make Mother of Pearl to make much-loved designers much-loved designers more accessible and more accessible and cost-e ective. cost-e ective. onloan.co onloan.co editors, Cocoon makes the fashion world’s most soughtafter designer bags available for hire. The site stocks every style of it-bag imaginable, from Balenciaga and Bottega Veneta to Jacquemus and JW Anderson, all of which are available through their monthly membership scheme. cocoon.club
Cocoon
A firm favourite with editors, Cocoon makes the fashion world’s most soughtafter designer bags available for hire. The site stocks every style of it-bag imaginable, from Balenciaga and Bottega Veneta to Jacquemus and JW Anderson, all of which are available through their monthly membership scheme. cocoon.club
SACHA NEWALL & TINA LAKE My Wardrobe HQ
mywardrobe.club
It all started with a lightbulb moment. “I was working in the car sharing industry at the time and, for every one car shared, 11 are taken off the road,” says My Wardrobe HQ co-founder Sacha Newall. “I realised that if we were to apply this metric to the fashion industry, it would start to solve the oversupply that is currently causing such environmental problems.” The idea was further cemented after a chance encounter with Tina Lake, the founder of successful e-tailer London-Boutiques; the pair decided to join forces, bringing retail guru and former Whistles chief executive Jane Shepherdson on board as chair and launching in 2019.
Billed as the UK’s first fashion rental and resale marketplace, this is a onestop shop for all your luxury secondhand needs: if you happen to fall in love with that eye-catching piece you hired for a special occasion, here you can actually buy it. None of MWHQ’s stock is bought in – instead, they work directly with style-savvy individuals and exclusive brand partners who are looking to make the most of their surplus pieces. Their huge inventory comes from over 500 designers, with big names such as Stella McCartney, Chanel and Prada on their books, as well as smaller British labels such as House of Sheldonhall, who they work with in a bid to protect the luxury sector from the threat of fast fashion. Alongside that they also cherry-pick pieces straight from the wardrobes of some of the capital’s most fashionable residents, on 19 July, the carefully curated edit focuses on elevated event-wear and celebrates the fantasy of fashion: think romantic Needle & Thread maxi dresses, Alexandre Vauthier micro minis and puff-sleeved Rasario gowns, which are currently flying off the rails. They’ve also become the must-visit destination for fashionforward brides, after Carrie Symonds used MWHQ to rent her wedding dress for her recent nuptials to Boris Johnson. The intricately embroidered tulle gown by Greek designer Christos
Sacha Newall My Wardrobe HQ
so you can borrow Alice NaylorLeyland’s tartan Emilia Wickstead dress or buy Arizona Muse’s Manolo Blahnik boots. “If you look at how Kate Moss popularised vintage shopping, rental is heading the same way,” says Newall. “It’s now seen as a badge of honour.”
Their unique business model caught the eye of the capital’s top department stores, with Liberty and Harvey Nichols both hosting MWHQ pop-ups over the years. Now Harrods has partnered with them to create a bespoke space in-store. Launched just in time for the full easing of lockdown Costarellos reportedly set Symonds back £45, whereas it would have cost her £2,870 to buy. As a frequent renter on the site (she also borrowed a number of looks for the G7 Summit, including an electric blue Amanda Wakeley suit and a mustard yellow Alice Eady dress), Newall had no idea that particular dress was destined for Westminster Cathedral. “As a regular customer, nothing flagged as being unusual about the order,” she said. Next up the brand is looking to expand internationally, with exciting plans afoot in Ibiza and St Tropez.
