You can easily rent a luxury car for your wedding, so why shouldn’t it be the same with your wedding dress, your gala gown or even a daily event?
You like the idea of constantly changing your outfits but wasting money is not your favourite sport?
I am proud to share this interesting interview with Caterina Maestro, Founder and CEO of DressYouCan, the fashion renting company that has revolutionized the way we live (and wear) clothes and accessories.
Interview with Caterina Maestro, Founder and CEO of Dress You Can
Q: What comes to your mind when you think about the concept of sustainability?
Women’s closets are filled with beautiful dresses, shoes, purses and other fashion accessories worn only once, because they were the result of impulse buying behavior or because either fashion, (or the owner’s body), have changed over time. As a result: money, energy, materials are wasted.
As a matter of fact, the retail industry is the second largest polluter in the world (Oil is the first).
Just think about some “fashion facts”:
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Between 1992 and 2002 clothes lifecycle was shortened by 50%. This is because fashion trends are becoming shorter lived.
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We buy 2X more clothes than we did just 15 years ago (2015 data).
reach $2.5 US billion by 2023 and when combined with resale, it will account for 13% of the total $360 billion US clothing market within the decade.
There are many reasons why recent years have seen clothing rental grow in popularity.
Consumers are increasingly searching for economical, sustainable methods of buying or owning new clothes instead of buying brand new.
Looking at it from a generational standpoint, millennials, in general, are less interested in ownership than they are in remaining current or having easy access to trends. In a world of social media and appearance-focused living, having the option to rent an item of clothing for a fraction of the cost is highly attractive to those who may not have the means to make frivolous purchases.
Social media is the driving force behind the clothing rental trend. In our society of oversharing on Instagram, especially, you cannot be seen to wear the same outfit twice. Many of our clients have two or more events per week, and simply can’t afford to spend hundreds of euros, on each dress. Thus they turn to rentals.
Sustainability is also a big factor in the recommence movement. As the world moves towards becoming more environmentally-friendly, the circular nature of clothing rental lowers consumption of fast fashion and the inevitable waste that accompanies this form of consumerism.
And now COVID-19 is a player in the attraction of recommence and the clothing rental industry. In today’s economic climate of unrest and unpredictability non-essential consumption has slowed down. People have less disposable income, limited access to traditional retail mediums, and exist in a perpetual state of unease, financially and otherwise. People are being forced to cancel all formal events and large gatherings, such as weddings, events, religious services.
Assuming life regains some sense of balance within the coming months, what does that mean for the latter half of the year after the first six of 2021, were marked by lack of social events? We will probably see an influx of social gatherings, and formal occasions, and thus, an increase in demand for formal wear.
Due to the unprecedented nature of COVID-19, it is almost impossible to predict what the future holds for retailers and consumers alike. All that is certain, however, is that people will be more than ready to socialize with friends and even more ready to look good on Instagram.
Q. Special projects or Plans for the future?
Everything we will keep on doing and strengthening will always be based on these 3 pillars.
First, for us, it’s not about training women to rent rather than buy, but to shape consumer behaviour to shop better. Don’t buy fast fashion. Invest more thoughtfully in luxury brands that have the profit margins to be thoughtful about sustainability.
In our new “subscription economy”, sustainability and environmental responsibility change from a “nice to have” to an actual economic imperative. In service models, the manufacturer handles the logistics and the equipment. If they don’t make sure that their equipment lasts as long as possible, and that the materials used to build that equipment are recycled or repurposed effectively, they will lose out to their competitors. It’s that simple. When companies become more efficient, the planet benefits.
Second, when companies work smarter at offering the best services possible, all sorts of opportunities open up. There’s more discovery on the consumer side — we get new clothes to wear, without throwing more junk into landfills. On the enterprise and manufacturing side, new analytic services are enabling companies, like ours, to work smarter and “unlock” billions of unrealized value.
Third: services bring sustainable growth. Companies that have direct relationships with their customers avoid boom and bust product cycles and greater macroeconomic havoc. And we will make sure to nourish our happy subscriber base!
There will always be conspicuous consumption. But a new economic model built around access and services is catching fire across every industry on the planet, because of inclusion, sustainability, discovery and growth. And that’s why this new model is here to stay.
Turning impulsive shopping into investment opportunities
Some analysts see a silver lining in the change of consumer habits, that is likely to be brought by the pandemic. According to a report by Bain & Company, the crisis will accelerate the shift to digital shopping and strengthen consumer concerns about sustainability. Both trends could favour a luxury reselling and renting platform like DressYouShare: pre-owned luxury, linked to the circular economy, positioning itself as a sustainable alternative to pure luxury consumption.
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A survey done in Britain found that one in three young women, consider clothes “old” after wearing them once or twice. One in seven, consider it a fashion faux-pas to be photographed in an outfit twice.
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Many people admit to keeping unused clothes in their closet. Most of the time, they end up with
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many more clothes than those they actually need. Compared to the 1980s, the statistics are even more shocking. We buy 4X more on average than we did at that time.
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New styles pop up almost daily, at major fast fashion retailers: this is a major shift from the usual 4 seasons. For example, H&M receives new shipments to stores every second day. Therefore, if you went shopping multiple times in one week, you would always find something new to buy. With large advertising budgets, these retailers make us feel like we need to buy new clothes all the time.
At the same time, young people, today, crave newness while embracing sustainability. Rental, resale and refurbishment models lengthen the product lifecycle while offering the newness the consumers desire.
Q: The DressYouCan Startup has revolutionized the Luxury market in Italy, can you tell us more?
DressYouCan is a female fashion rental service that offers unlimited styles and allows women to make money, sharing their under-utilised wardrobes.
The concept stems from a real problem: women’s closet are filled with beautiful dresses, shoes and other fashion accessories worn only once, as we said.
DressYouCan provides a different response to the imperative need for luxury / designer-branded clothing at a discounted price, already fulfilled by several online retailers, by proposing women an alternative consumption modality: rental.
Fashion rental is the environmentally sensitive answer to customer needs. It contributes to sustainability, by significantly extending clothes lifecycle and, therefore, reducing energy and materials waste, while still keeping up with the latest trends.
Sustainability and allowing every woman to feel at ease, are our foundations.
By giving people access to remarkable luxury experiences, we’re changing the meaning of ownership — and revolutionizing retail in the process.
As opposed to thinking about ourselves as disrupting the fashion industry, we’re thinking about ourselves more broadly: we disrupt closets and the way you choose your outfits, like an “Airbnb for wardrobes”. DressYouCan private members can in fact have, both a convenient access to an infinite wardrobe, and rent their own one, turning impulsive purchases from the past into investments. This allows DYC to involve consumers both on the supply and on the demand side and most likely turn suppliers into consumers and vice versa.
Renting clothing is no longer solely the purview of millennials looking for a dress to wear to a wedding.
Avid users of these platforms say it has dramatically changed their shopping habits, helping them cut down on impulse purchasing or buying into trends. But it has also upped their personal style by allowing them to experiment with fashion and try new or more expensive brands.
Rental models lengthen the product lifecycle while offering the newness consumers desire.
Through renting instead of buying, every woman can afford the luxury of wearing a new outfit every day and feel finally free from the fashion rules.
Q: How do you envision the future of sustainability in your field?
People are becoming more value-minded and probably more longevity-minded about products. There will still be a market for luxury goods, but not in a disposable way. Covid-19 may well accelerate this trend. While the virus is taking a significant toll on the primary luxury sector, DressYouCan has seen a boost in business over the past few months as house-bound consumers clear out their wardrobe and spend more time surfing the web.
Luxury consumers are also likely to, at least for the time being, adopt the “fewer, better things” mantra that environmentalists have been advocating over the past decade. While this could spur increased activity in the second-hand and rental channels once fear around the
virus contagion subsides, it also means that many consumers will be looking for so-called “investment” pieces — minimalist, last-forever items — that feel more responsible given the state of the world.
We expect a period of recovery to be characterized by a continued lull in spending and a decrease in demand across channels.
The results of “quarantine of consumption” could accelerate consumer's growing antipathy toward waste producing business models and heightened expectations for purpose-driven, sustainable action.
Luxury consumers are likely to, at least for the time being, adopt the “fewer, better things” mantra that environmentalists have been advocating over the past decade.
Some of the shifts we will witness in the fashion system, such as the digital step change, in-season retail, seasonless design and the decline of wholesale are mostly an acceleration of the inevitable.
For sure there are seasonal trends, pantone codes, special prints that each brand should follow very professionally but modest fashion brands are quite successful as they are harmonizing their timeless brand codes with the latest trends.
Q: Renting Luxury is common in many fields, not in fashion: what have been the greatest challenges you faced since you started?
In today’s age of being fashion, money and environmentally conscious, the womenswear rental market is becoming an increasingly popular way for women to access a sustainable and ethical type of fashion hire. Whether it’s day-to-day wear or elegant occasion wear, there is now a huge range of garments to choose from.
As this emerging sector continues to grow at pace, womenswear rental subscription services will start to become more popular and DressYouCans is primed and ready to improve existing ladies’ fashion rental platforms, as well as to assist new entrants.
According to research done by GlobalData in 2019, the clothing-rental business is expected to
