To Buy Or Not To Buy!

As the world’s eyes are opened to the devastating effects of fast fashion — including human rights violations and environmental damage — author Dana Thomas explores an alternative future for fashion. And it’s brighter than you might expect.

- Dana Thomas

What if you eschewed the notion of ownership entirely? When you say that all you have are the clothes on your back, it usually means you have zero, zippo, zilch. What if you did that with intention?

What if you bagged buying clothes and rented them instead?

Renting clothes for men is not radical. My high-school boyfriend rented his tux for the prom. My husband rented his morning suit for our wedding.

But women? For anything other than for a costume party? Unthinkable.

Why?

Because the fashion industry has always wanted women to buy.

How else could they keep the cycle going and the profits rolling in? Then, along came the sharing economy, the idea that we don’t have to possess something to consume it. We share cars, music, homes. It was only a matter of time before the sharing economy moved into our wardrobes.

If the internet and social media kicked off the democratisation of fashion, renting solidified it. Renting clothes gives the modestly off consumer access to the same level of on-point luxury and style — if briefly — that the wealthy always have, and they can get it right now, for a fraction of the (oft-overinflated) retail price. The only items you’d ever need to buy are underwear, sleepwear, swimwear and shoes. Renting, more than any other apparel business model, fulfills legendary editor Anna Wintour’s desire to give as many people as possible the chance to wear Fashion. And to do so daily.

Unquestionably, the leader in garment sharing is the New York-based Rent the Runway. Founded in 2008 by a pair of Harvard Business School students, Jennifer Hyman and Jennifer Fleiss, it focused for nearly its first decade in business on special occasion clothes — prom gowns, party garb, the non-celebs’ version of red-carpet dressing.