Right now my favourite items in my wardrobe belong to someone else and I'm cool with it. Pt 1
Photo: Emma wearing Onloan Mother of Pearl denim suit trousers. Shirt found in Shelter Lordship lane. Image courtesy of Onloan
If you check in on my instagram then you may be aware that I follow a personal hierarchy of buyers need, the premise of which is…
As a first port of call I ‘shop’ my own wardrobe; utilising handy skills practiced almost to a fine art in my days running a style consultancy that taught the lost art of working with your own wardrobe to create new looks. Put quite simply (as simply in fact as the tag line for said consultancy ‘Back of the Wardrobe’), it is all about ‘Old Clothes and New Ways of Wearing them’.
If I want to buy something I always shop second hand first. After all – wearing existing clothes is the most sustainable way of doing fashion.
And if I really feel like I want a wardrobe addition, a little touch of newness that speaks to a fresh aesthetic that I haven’t been able to find second hand, then I rent it. Even if it’s just about convenience and I want something quick and gorgeous that I might not be willing to invest in; perhaps I’m not sure I’d wear it more than a handful of times, or I’m not sure I have space for it in my wardrobe as a permanent addition – then I find rental is the perfect solution.
And full disclosure if I really want to invest in purchasing a truly new (as in recently made) piece – it will most likely be from a sustainable, ethical brand as far as I can determine that to be the case.
I was an early adopter of rental having been waiting for it to launch in the UK since a friend of mine launched a jewellery rental service called the folly boutique back in 2013. It was before it’s time…Rent the Runway had only just launched in the US (2009) and the sustainability movement still felt pretty ‘niche’ to put it lightly so I’m not sure customers were quite ready for this fantastic revolutionary concept.
I… was it’s biggest fan and promoted it to my personal style clients whenever it was appropriate as a way of enjoying newness without having to commit emotionally or financially, and crucially…without encouraging over production in the same way as buying new would.
Fast forward 10 years and the UK is finally ready for lifestyle rental. We’ve seen a flurry of fashion rental platforms and The Folly Boutique has been picked up by one of them as a perfect addition to their clothing offering.
I have tried out most of the UK platforms (those that are officially launched and live) and I am a huge fan of this redefinition of ‘newness’ within a fashion context. As a consultant working within the fashion retail space – circular models and ideas that move us away from our old fashioned predilection towards ownership fascinate me and I’m here for a mode of newness that gives all the same thrill factor but that keeps clothes in circulation and passing through many wardrobes, staving off the need to buy new. I’m definitely here for that.
So here for it in fact that I decided to interview the multiple genius women that have come up with the concepts and the various platforms. If you’re interested in trying out fashion rental yourself I suggest you stick around because here’s the down low on where to head for what, the pros the cons (spoiler there aren’t many cons)…and everything in-between. Head back over to Instagram for video interview snippets from the founders and more over the course of the next week.
onloan
Mother of Pearl suit and shirt available to rent at Onloan.
Image courtesy of Onloan
How does it work in a nutshell?
Onloan is a subscription based rental platform.
There are three monthly subscription packages which include free shipping, cleaning and any minor repairs:
2 items for £69 per month
3 items for £99 per month
5 items £159 per month
They courier the pieces to your door and use repack sustainable reusable packaging (which afford them bonus points a plenty)! I am a geeky fan girl of Repack.
How did I rate my rental experience?
onloan is an incredibly service focussed experience despite still being a relatively small start-up. It doesn’t get more convenient than being able to WhatsApp the concierge on your way home mid-afternoon and have a package to sign for waiting for you at the door when you arrive.
I love how obvious it is that there’s a fashion head behind this organisation and this really translates to the options available on the site. It’s a fashion girls’ dream with everything from Kitri, House of Dagmar and Alexa Chung to Mother of Pearl available to rent. And whilst founder Tamsin insists that this is not supposed to be somewhere get your basics, one of the things I loved about renting from Onloan is that I did actually wear the pieces every day. Why? Because somehow they were for the most part the holy trifecta of fashion forward, comfortable and easy to wear, and yet still a bit special. I only had one instance where something didn’t fit my body shape and sizing was off and Onloan were great about sending alternate sizes and options.
What did I dig most about Onloan?
Their long term commitment to a new way of doing things and a more sustainable approach shown through preparing ‘the edit’ and not allowing customers to scroll is bold and thoughtful. At first I have to admit I was sceptical – I consider myself to be fairly proficient at choosing my own clothes and styling my own looks. I mean – I was at one point in my career a stylist. Nevertheless, I wanted to see what this approach could offer. I must have been the kind of customer that could be tedious because I did not hide my scepticism, in fact I distinctly remember (rather embarrassingly now) mentioning during the style exploration call that ‘I come from, a fashion background’, and asking who ‘would be doing these edits?’. I was reassured that the person responsible for compiling style profiles and creating the edits had years and year in industry and that I was in safe hands.
As it turns out, I really was – I’ve loaned with Onloan for several months and I’ve never received an edit that didn’t capture my style aura perfectly. I think the key is that Onloan really really listen! They heard me when I said I wanted to see sustainably focussed brands or lower impact materials in my edits, and they listened closely to the feedback you’re required to give following each months loan, on the fit, the styles and your experience wearing the pieces.
And the icing on the cake? The thing that really get’s me going when it comes to the edit model? It’s the way it purposefully prevents what is both a chore and a bad behavioural habit which has undoubtedly been born out of this throwaway fast fashion culture and that promotes endless options. It’s edging us away from scrolling through endless newness that is too accessible to be true, and that somehow has become the way we do self care and comfort. We’ve all felt that sick heady frustration after scrolling for an interminably long time, through the seemingly never ending options that came back once we filtered our wildest desires into the ASOS results tab. But somehow the idea of having that option removed didn’t feel good (initially at least). I have to admit I didn’t enjoy the feeling that I no longer had the agency or the option. But then I got it, because it was altering my outlook.
Once I received my first, and then my second and then my third edit complete with 6 or so pieces that all spoke to me I was confident that I didn’t need that time wasting scroll time in my life and that 6 options were more than enough. It was liberating for me and I already have a way of operating that should have meant I was more than ready for this approach. It turns out that this consumer culture of excess runs deeper than we realise…
The Interview: Tamsin Chislett Onloan Founder
What kind of pieces can people expect to find in their edits?
We dress women for all aspects of their multifaceted lives: we have great clothes for work, for the weekend, for date night, for going out-out and for special occasions too. Every piece in the Onloan collection has been hand-selected by us because it has a little something extra. So we don’t loan basics (we hope our customers will invest in a sustainably made quality pair of black trousers for example), but instead focus on pieces with interesting prints, colours, shapes, and styles. Every piece is high-quality, and fun to wear.
How do you assess and get the measure of people’s individual style and serve that up successfully?
Every new customer fills in a Style Survey, that gives us insight into their size, styles and brands they love, and anything they absolutely won’t wear, and some choose to have a Style Call where we dig into this in more detail too. We purposely leave it a bit open-ended because many of our customers use loaning as a way to try new things, and even push themselves out of their comfort zone a bit. As our customers loan with us month after month, we learn tons, because they give feedback each month on the items they send back – letting us know about fit, how well something worked with existing pieces in their wardrobe. No regular retail company has that level of insight into how a customer feels about a piece after they’ve worn a piece for a month – and I love how it means we can deliver vastly better service to our loaners month on month.
What are your most popular rental pieces?
Midi dresses and skirts have been hugely popular this summer, especially from kitri and lily & lionell!
We’ve seen lots of love for Farm Rio, a Brazilian brand that we are currently the only stockists of in the UK.
And many of our loaners ask for sustainable brands, so Mother of Pearl and House of Dagmar do really well for us too. ** Head to @emsladedmondson to see the rest of the pieces mentioned!
Let’s talk size inclusivity – what sizes are currently available and what are your future plans for expanding on this if any? Is this important to you?
We currently stock 8-14. Frankly, we know this is a bit rubbish because it’s so limited, but we are a tiny
company, less than a year old, and as we purchase our stock wholesale we were limited in the range we could afford. However I’m very pleased to say we’ve just started buying size 16 for next season, so will stock 8-16 by the beginning of next year. It’s very important to us, and we’ll look to work with brands who can help us be truly size inclusive.
Image: Founders of Onloan Tamsin and Nat. Courtesy of Onloan
A discount code for you.
If you fancy trying out Onloan for yourself you’re in luck – I’ve got a little discount code for you: Use EMSLADEONLOAN for 20% off your first month. ** please note that I will also receive a small discount if you do use this code **
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Next up for part 2 later this week I’ll be sharing my experience of renting with peer to peer platforms Hurr and By Rotation. So keep an eye on instagram for when the next instalment of my Fashion Rental DL will be up. I’ll also be sharing bitesize snippets of the interviews and my experiences in instagram stories so hop over if you prefer to itty bitty bitesize info as opposed to a long form blog read.
Emma Xx
