Is Renting Designer Clothes The Future Of Fashion?
At the same time, drop culture, big-name branding, and the envy-inducing world of Instagram have created more pressure than ever to be seen in the latest trends and in the buzziest labels. Research by environmental charity Hubbub, found that 41 per cent of all 18-25 year-olds feel the pressure to wear a different outfit every time they go out, while one in six said that they didn’t feel they could wear an outfit again once it had been seen on social media.
This has fuelled the flames of fast fashion – copycat pieces that borrow from the luxury market and are reproduced cheaply, unsustainably and en masse.
The Sustainability Of Renting
The third trend, a growing public understanding of sustainable fashion, aims to combat this. One of the biggest factors that makes fashion’s environmental footprint a problem is the fact that people buy more clothes than they need and throw them out much sooner than they ought to.
Sacha Newall, founder of fashion sharing service My Wardrobe HQ, argues that it will take time for us to see the eco-friendly returns from clothing rental but other industries show a way forward.
“BMW says that for every car shared, 11 are taken off the street. So imagine you’ve got the designer piece that you can now rent for close to the same price as the fast fashion copy. If you know you’re only going to wear that fast copy once then you might as well have the original.”
From a personal view you can be stunting on Instagram and tagging the brands, but from an environmental point of view if each of those garments has saved 11 fast fashion pieces from quickly going from store to landfill then that can only be a good thing.
Will It Work For Menswear?
Suit rental for one-off occasions like proms or weddings have long had a place in menswear, albeit taking up a slim proportion of the industry. Elsewhere streetwear with its emphasis on constantly changing trends, brands to be seen in and rare, exclusive offerings open up interesting avenues for menswear rental services to provide expensive must-have garments on the cheap.
