Along with thrifting and swapping, clothing rental has exploded in the fashion industry. It satiates our desire for newness while offering a more circular, sustainable, and accessible alternative to the current linear, fast fashion model. Bonus, the renter doesn’t have to do laundry and suffer the remorse that generally tends to follow impulse buys.
A relatively new concept in South Africa, we talk to the owners of four clothing rental services championing the rental revolution to find out how it works and whether it will catch on in the country.
Style Rotate
Cleo Marcopoulos and Natasha Liesner first met interning at ELLE Magazine SA in 2013. After five years in the industry, the former fashion director at Cosmopolitan SA, Cleo, and former buyer at a big clothing retailer, Natasha, reconnected fortuitously at a clothes swap where they not only exchanged garments but also ideas on how to reconcile their concerns with fast fashion with their love for fashion.
“I really saw first-hand how terribly the fashion industry treats everything: The planet, garment workers, the factories and when I left the retailer I really wanted to be part of a solution to the wasteful model instead of continuing to be part of the problem,” says Natasha.
Shortly after they met, Natasha and Cleo launched the digital fashion rental service Style Rotate at the end of 2019 with a vision to provide an easier, more sustainable solution to the age-old wardrobe woe of spending a fortune on a fancy dress for a special occasion only for it to meet its only-worn-once, musty demise at the back of the cupboard.
How it works
Style Rotate works on a predominantly inventory-based rental model. Style Rotate is made up of a catalogue of over 150 international and local clothing items that they have personally sourced.
Style Rotate’s inventory consists of mostly previously-owned and some new, semi-formal, and smart-casual items. You can rent in sizes ranging from 28 to 50 (SA size) / XS to 3XL to suit occasions ranging from a daytime sojourn to a night out or black-tie event.
Natasha explains that when they source new, they have a strict list of requirements that are factored into their final buying decision. The first requirement is the founder of Eco-Age, Livia Firth’s ‘30 Wears’ rule.
“We aim for all of our items to be rented at least 30 times so because of this rule we don’t source cheap, ‘High Street’, fast fashion items,” says Natasha adding, “Instead, we make investments in brands who make long-lasting, quality clothes which is what informed our local brand partnership avenue of Style Rotate”.
When an item’s rental life comes to an end, Natasha says that Style Rotate previously partnered with pre-loved platform “the Flipp” to resell their items. This year, however, Style Rotate is launching their own resale arm of the business together with a collaboration with South African clothing upcycling brand, RETHREAD which involves upcycling old rental garments.
All Style Rotate items are washed by hand and air-dried to keep energy usage as low as possible. Items similar in colour are batch-washed to save water.
Natasha says that packaging is their biggest but also trickiest labour of love as they are always evolving it to be the best it can be.
“Everything that goes to the customer comes back from the customer and we use it again as many times as possible,” says Natasha adding, “For local deliveries, we have been using the same recycled garment bags since we launched Style Rotate.”
Style Rotate is looking to include accessories with the option of renting pre-owned luxury bags – in collaboration with Luxe Lend.
At the end of last year Style Rotate launched a new avenue called SR: The You Edit where they invite members of their community to rent their wardrobes.
Style Rotate delivers nationwide. Fitting and styling services are available in Cape Town by appointment only.
- To rent click here
- Follow Style Rotate @stylerotate
Shared Collective
Gauteng-based clothing rental service, Shared Collective is the brainchild of best friends Simone Veitch and Kishana Naidoo who were looking for creative ways to make money during their student years.
“We didn’t realise the assets we had sitting in our wardrobes – things we wouldn’t necessarily wear but kept for sentimental purposes – like matric dance dresses and bridesmaids’ dresses,” says Simone.
Shared Collective grew from Simone’s matric dance rental brand Little Borrowed Dress (LBD) which empowered young women to make money while providing a sustainable option to fast fashion and overconsumption.
How it works
Shared Collective is a peer-to-peer clothing rental platform. Members upload their items from casual- to occasion-wear to Shared Collective’s site and users can rent them for a fraction of the price for which they would buy the item brand new.
Members sign up and, after passing security checks, they create a profile that houses their items for renting. These members have access to a dashboard to track rental requests and income.
Renters contact interested lenders directly to discuss details like delivery and rental dates. The minimum rental period is two to three days but Simone explains that if a lender requires an extension on their rental they can get in touch with Shared Collective. “We act as the middle party when necessary,” says Simone.
Shared Collective gets 10% commission from each rental which means they only get paid when their members get paid.
On the question of quality control in a peer-to-peer clothing rental model, Shared Collective’s rule of thumb is, if the item was bought for less than R300 it shouldn’t be uploaded unless it qualifies as a vintage piece .
“We are constantly giving advice to our ‘sharers’ on how much they should price their items and which of their items we think will perform well and which won’t,” Simone says. “We understand [clothing rental] is a new concept in South Africa and we are here to help our members”.
Shared Collective’s rental services are currently only available in the Gauteng region but there are plans to scale up.
- To rent click here
- Follow Shared Collective @sharedcollective
OnRotate
Cape Town-based OnRotate operates as a purely peer-to-peer fashion rental service. Co-founder Dorita Correia says they are 100% committed to this model. “We don’t buy any inventory and are looking to prolong the life of quality items already in circulation thereby avoiding excessive waste,” she says.
Searching for a sustainable alternative to disposable fashion, Dorita Correia and Kelley Moran launched the digital fashion rental service, OnRotate after long and careful consideration, time, and money in December last year. It is an easy, safe and viable alternative to fast fashion, encouraging a change in the way that people shop.
“The idea that you can have fun expressing yourself in a variety of looks without committing to purchase seemed like a win-win for our community and the planet. We really believe this model is the future of fashion,” Dorita says.
How it works
All OnRotate’s lenders undergo detailed identity verification checks before they are accepted as lenders on the platform. While OnRotate offers occasion wear as well as everyday wear, shoes, bags, and accessories they have stringent quality controls on the items listed. “Our starting point is to stay away from high-street labels (they tend to be fast- and poorly made) and to focus on luxury and contemporary labels,” says Dorita.
OnRotate only accepts items that are in good condition and that are supported by detailed photographs. Once all the above checks have been made by the internal team at OnRotate, a renter can list their wardrobe for free on the site.
OnRotate offers a free wardrobe management service on all listing and rental processes for those who lack the time to manage their own listings or have a lot of listings to manage.
Packaging and cleaning are two factors that OnRotate has carefully considered. According to Dorita their reusable packaging is made from discarded fashion billboards.
Dorita explains that all the platform’s lenders are provided with tips on how best to clean and care for their products both to prolong the useful life of their garments as well as to be kind to the environment.
OnRotate offers a four-day, eight-day, ten-day, and 20-day rental option as a standard across all rental items. “Whilst the four-day rental option is the most popular option, the longer option is ideal for holidays or to get the most out of the rental,” says Dorita.
OnRotate’s rental service is available throughout South Africa. Rentals are fulfilled via safe and secure courier delivery and the price of delivery both from the lender to the renter and back again is included in the cost of the rental. OnRotate also offers a size-fit guarantee to ensure the best possible fit.
- To rent click here
- Follow OnRotate @onrotateofficial
Asha : Eleven The Rent Shop
Cape Town-based design-driven sustainable clothing and lifestyle brand Asha : Eleven is piloting an in-house rental option to encourage buying better to buy less called The Rent Shop.
“The rental service is something that I have been wanting to roll out for quite some time but being a small brand that only produces very limited quantities as it is, we do have limitations in that, to free up one unit of each style in each size for a whole season can be tricky,” says Olivia.
How it works
Under The Rent Shop tab on Asha : Eleven’s website, browse the selection of items up for rent. If you see the A ‘Sold Out’ sign means that the item is currently being rented. You can ask the team at Asha : Eleven to alert you when the item will become available for rent again.
Rental prices range from R600 to R900 which includes the cost of the rental, a cleaning fee of R150, and a return shipping and handling fee of R150. The cost to deliver to you will be added at checkout (R90 standard delivery or R120 overnight express *main centres only, order before 10am).
Olivia advises taking note of the delivery windows when ordering, especially when renting an item for an event on a weekend to ensure there is enough time to receive the item.
If you fall in love with the garment and decide you would like to purchase it, you will get a 10% discount on the retail price, and Asha : Eleven will waive the cost of your original rental fee and refund that too (excluding return shipping/handling and cleaning of the rental item) and you will receive a brand-new version of the item so that the sample item can go back into circulation at the Rent Shop.
Because Asha : Eleven is a small, sustainable business and The Rent Shop is in its experimental phase, rental is only available in South Africa for premium-priced items in sample sizes XSmall, Small, or in some cases, S/M and One Size.
“It is not fully ideal because we are not offering a fully inclusive size set which also isn’t giving us the most accurate response in terms of how people would warm to the idea but as with everything, we communicate this really openly to our audience and ask people to kindly understand that this is an experimental phase and seeing how it is responded to will dictate whether we decide to do it again in the future,” Olivia says.
Olivia explains that all Rent Shop items are professionally cleaned with eco detergents after every use to ensure the next renter receives a clean and harm-free garment.
For their mailer bags, Asha : Eleven uses ecoLoop, 100% biodegradable mailer bags which they ask the renters to return together with the garment boxes which are made from recycled paper and are completely reusable. Olivia explains that the only part of the packaging that is not reusable is the tissue paper inside the box which is made from recycled paper.
- To rent click here
- Follow Asha : Eleven @asha_eleven
Conclusion
Fashion rental in the form we know it today and especially in South Africa, is still a fairly new concept.
“Remember when Uber came to South Africa? We all had our doubts, but now we depend on them. We think it’s a similar thing with renting clothes, especially renting out your own clothes during Covid. We know we have to be in this for the long run, as it will take time for our audience to adopt our services,” says Simone from Shared Collective.
Dorita also believes that the fashionable rental model will only be embraced fully and widely if it becomes as easy as “normal” shopping which, for OnRotate, means putting work into quality control, ensuring trust in the rental Community, free delivery throughout South Africa, easy returns and size-fit guarantees.
So, if you’ve been wondering about rental, we hope this article has convinced you to give it a try next time you want to sustainably switch up your wardrobe!
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