Back in the days if you told anyone that you were to rent something designer, people would immediately assume that 1) you cannot afford to buy it full price or 2) you will pretend that you own it just to “show off”. People are (or should hopefully be) more aware of the things they are buying, where they come from and especially who made them. Renting designer items has always been around but wasn’t in the limelight as much as it is now. However, after the attack of the pandemic, there is a new way of buying clothes and materialistic items. As people were allowed to come out of lockdown, Selfridges announced that they were doing a ‘Project Earth’ service by in their words “reinventing retail so you can resell, repair and refill with us”. They teamed up with designer rental platform HURR Collective for this service. There are other designer rental sites that offer the same services but have different policies.

Here are a few: My Wardrobe HQ, By Rotation, Front Row, Rotaro, Bag Butler.

To be a part of it all, you firstly have to register to the site of your choice, wait to be approved and then explore from the range of designer items they have to offer. These sites allow you to rent from all the top designer brands such as Chanel, Givenchy, Alexander McQueen, Prada plus many more.

This new way of owning your very own designer piece does not have to break the bank nor make you feel bad for buying something to then only wear it once. A sustainable way of living and buying is among us, now there is no need to feel embarrassed to be wearing something that is rented, hold your head high knowing that you are helping the environment by ‘recycling’ in a fashionable way and join in on the new fast-growing fashion rental industry that doesn’t disappoint.

By Shennelle Mclune @_monshenstyle_