“There’s a real indication of our attitudes changing,” says Lorna Hall, head of retail at trends forecaster WGSN Insight. “We don’t have to own it. It’s access to the brands but without the cost.

“The Westfield survey showed that renting clothing wasn’t the taboo everyone thought it was. Everyone thought it was just for an occasion, but there now seem to be businesses who think they can get real viability in other areas – casual wear especially.”

That’s where menswear comes in.

How It Works

There are two models for renting clothes, brand-to-consumer and peer-to-peer. The first is what Moss Bros has been doing for years with tailoring. You go to a company with a broad stock, rent what you like for the amount of time you need it, then just take it back for it to be washed and rented out again.

What’s new is that rather than just wedding suits, companies are now offering different kinds of occasionwear: designer jackets, must-have sneakers and expensive accessories.

The other style, peer-to-peer, is basically Airbnb for your wardrobe. Let’s say you have an embroidered Gucci jacket hanging up at home. It cost a fortune and, shockingly, doesn’t get the wear you thought it would – but you can’t quite bring yourself to put it on Depop. Instead you can list it on a rental service and loan it out to people who want to borrow it for a night, a weekend or a holiday. In the process, it might even pay for itself.

Likewise, you can nose around other people’s wardrobes for items you know you’ll only wear once or twice a season and save yourself the cost of buying it outright. Alongside a rotation of affordable basics, you can add statement designer pieces as you see fit.

The Instagram Effect

According to Hall, there are four wider trends that are influencing the growth in the market. Firstly, millennials (broadly speaking) don’t have the disposable income to buy the labels they covet the most, thanks in part to increasing house rental prices and ballooning education fees. Cost-effective renting therefore makes sense for fashion-hungry, image-aware young people.