Renting is the new buying: Hirestreet CEO Isabella West on creating a supersized shared wardrobe

“I was looking for dresses to rent for Ascot and all of the ones I wanted were unavailable,” says Hirestreet chief executive Isabella West as she sits down for coffee with Retail Week outside a sunny cafe in Spitalfields, east London.

As the boss and founder of the rental platform, one might think she has first dibs on outfits – but her experience shows how popular rental has become – particularly when big occasions roll around.

The rental market has grown exponentially over the past few years – it is set to grow 10% year on year for the next five years and be worth more than £7.5bn by 2026.

West founded Hirestreet in 2017 but it was years in the making and born out of a love of sharing fashion, first with her sisters and then with her university friends.

While completing her degree in economics at Oxford, two phenomena grew, she says – fast fashion and Instagram.

The culmination of each meant West and her friends were purchasing more clothing, but after moving to London and living in different boroughs, having a shared wardrobe was not so straightforward. 

While working for Selfridges, West’s ideas for a rental platform were confirmed when reading about the success of Rent the Runway in the US.

Enter Hirestreet: the brand started using unwanted items from West and her friend’s wardrobes – graduation and party dresses that they were unlikely to wear again.

Five years on, Hirestreet hosts more than 90 brands ranging from high street favourites like Zara and Marks & Spencer, to premium labels such as Lexi and Rat and Boa.

Hirestreet also boasts 1.8 million users who rent 10 outfits a year – and with rental on the rise, how soon before shoppers can click “rent” as easily as they click “add to cart”?

Democratising sustainability

While other rental platforms such as Hurr Collective and Rotaro have leaned firmly into the luxury space, West was determined to carve out a niche in helping more value – and often, largely, fast-fashion – shoppers access clothes in a more sustainable way than buying things once and throwing them away.

“We wanted to be a fashion rental platform for the person who shops at Asos or Zara. They are the people who typically buy four new outfits a month, spending perhaps £30 to £50 on average on each new item and having a new item every weekend – that was our target customer,” she says.

When asked why she did not choose to build her business using luxury brands, West says a key factor was the durability of the garments themselves.

She describes it as a bell curve, where both the cheapest and the most expensive garments degrade quite fast, whereas the products in the middle last for 20 or more washes.

West explains the unit economics when it comes to these types of garments – they are cost effective to purchase to begin with and to maintain in the rental cycle.

She was also able to bring on more premium high street brands and international retailers, connecting them with a different type of customer who would not usually be able to afford to buy a dress outright.

The sweet spot here is a £200 dress to rent for £30, compared with a £2,000 dress that would be rented for £100 at one of her luxury competitors.

“Rental basically reconnects the customer to more premium brands at the price point that is equivalent to fast fashion, without them producing at that level,” she says.

In terms of the sustainability of renting a garment, West says 90% of its carbon footprint is made in the supply chain through the production stage.

“If you effectively take one garment and rent it to 20 people, you’re actually reducing the carbon footprint by 89%”

Isabella West, Hirestreet

“The problem with fast fashion is that people are buying it and wearing it once,” she says. “If you can actually stop that happening – stop where we’re overproducing and underwearing – that’s the solution. 

“If you effectively take one garment and rent it to 20 people, you’re actually reducing the carbon footprint by 89%, and that doesn’t matter if that item is fast fashion.”

Surprisingly, Hirestreet’s “dream” retail partner is Zara, because of its ability to always have its finger on the pulse of what is on trend. 

Zara’s model works by producing short runs of garments at a super fast pace, with the most popular products of the season often selling out – if 10% of that stock is reserved for rental, there is huge potential to multiply profits.

A mindset shift

Rental for big occasions is an idea that was first seen by suit retailers, offering a hiring service for a wedding or prom.

Going a step further, renting dresses for events such as weddings and balls has started to move up the agenda – but renting for everyday will require a big shift in how consumers view their wardrobes.

One way Hirestreet has begun catering to this is by offering bundles for customers, allowing them to rent three items for a 14-day period for £40.

This idea is most popular for holidays, though the platform also offers bundles for maternity wear and workwear.

West says the idea came from customers. It feeds into the desire for newness, especially for occasions where they want to look their best and most likely take lots of pictures for social media.

“We are seeing the market shifting,” West says. “If we look at your cohort of renters that started renting in Q1 last year, we’ve had them for over a year and they’ve rented 10 times since and not all of that is formal occasions.

“It’s up to the rental platforms to listen, to drive the market forward and also curate the stock selection accordingly.”

“Most young people this summer will have a busy diary, so while holidays might be a trigger to start that bundle process, life plans mean they go on to do the next one and the next one”

Isabella West, Hirestreet

West believes bundles are the key to unlocking rental in casualwear. “We’re already seeing people do back-to-back bundles, which is fascinating,” she adds.

“So, yes, you rented your first three items for £40 to go on a holiday, but you might just have a weekend coming up where you’ve got brunch with the girls, or three events over the course of the next 40 days.

“Most young people this summer will have a busy diary, so while holidays might be a trigger to start that bundle process, general life plans mean they go on to do the next one and the next one.”

West also says rental needs to shift to be front of mind for those who would not consider themselves as fashion-forward – and that requires the option to rent to be obvious.

An alternative channel

West says the answer lies in creating the rental equivalent of the ‘buy now, pay later’ button – where customers can click to either buy or rent an item on a retailer’s website and create an integrated basket of both when they go to pay.

That would be powered by West’s other venture – white-label rental-as-service technology platform Zoa. For now, Zoa’s partners include suit tailors Rathbones and skiwear label Blanqo.

As revealed by Retail Week last month, the first big British retailer, French Connection, has come on board, offering its dresses to rent through a dedicated frenchconnectionrental.com website.

Creating a button that would sit next to the standard ’add to cart’ would go one step further. West says it would represent “the third frontier” for rental – retailers are just beginning to “dip their toe” into rental using platforms such as Hirestreet and some, like French Connection, are exploring their own channels.

Having an integrated experience creates cross-selling opportunities. Customers may choose to rent more items than they would usually purchase, while also buying additional items such as shoes, bags or accessories.

Once rental becomes ingrained in both retailers and customers’ purchase considerations, there will then also be the opportunity to collate data and understand which products work best for which revenue streams – feeding into supply chains and enabling more efficient choices.

That can also supercharge profits, because one garment rented could make 10-times what it would if bought outright. 

There is no doubt that rental is on the rise and, with Hirestreet and Zoa firmly entrenched as key players, Isabella West is set to be one of the leaders of the revolution.

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