A local company has come up with an unusual model for renting clothing, while loaning out your own.
The global online clothing rental market was valued at $1.5 billion in 2017, and it’s expected to increase another ten per cent by 2026.
In the age of social media, it’s not enough to have one fancy dress for all the special occasions year after year.
Jenessa Olson, co-founder of Statement, explains, “They want the ‘insta’ or want something fresh…They don’t necessarily want to have these ‘statement’ pieces in their closet all the time.”
Olson and her sister have long been in the sharing economy, and they recognized that many of their friends were buying clothes for special occasions, only to leave them untouched in their closets.
“Let’s get access to those items that are dying death anyways…Give them a second life...And you have an opportunity to make some money and make a positive contribution to the planet,” she says.
That's the premise of their company – Statement - a clothing rental service that allows people to lend their clothing to strangers at affordable prices.
Renting special occasion clothing is also environmentally friendly, as consumers rent and reuse items rather than buy and discard them after just a few wears.
Anyone interested in renting out an item can submit a photo online. From there, you set a price, usually about 20 per cent of what you bought it for.
Statement then verifies the item, the lender and the renter before the garment is put online.
Olson says, “You make 75 per cent of what we rent it out for…It's a good amount of money you'll be able to make.”
Stmnt.ca covers all of the logistics, including wear and tear, and everything is geographically bound, so you can only find items that are your size and in your area.
