Try Before You Buy: The Future Of Sustainable Fashion?

As we grapple to find a happy medium between being more eco-conscious and maintaining a healthy economy (and satisfy our desires to own nice things), this new model of luxury fashion might just be the in-between we’ve been searching for. While there already a host of fantastic rental and vintage fashion retailers and websites allowing us to make eco-friendly choices, the rental-meets-purchase is here. Mother of Pearl has teamed up with rental platform Onloan to make it happen.

Mother of Pearl X Onloan

Applying a ‘try before you buy’ model to clothes makes sense; when you try something on in a shop changing room (remember those?) it’s hard to understand how it will fit into your wardrobe as a whole. If you could take it home, wear it for a week or two and then decide for or against it, we’d probably all be making more mindful, less wasteful fashion choices.

With 300,000 metric tons of textiles being binned in the UK every year, we all need to cut down on waste when it comes to fashion, and work toward a more cyclical model. (Check out our piece on circular fashion for a full explanation on this.) Mother of Pearl has joined forces with rental platform Onloan, to extend the life cycle of our clothes by giving all our customers the option to rent, rather than buy.

“I believe collaboration has become a necessity for future proofing our planet, sharing knowledge and resources and bringing community back to the heart of everything we do. C/o Onloan i am so excited to introduce rental to our community to add circular options for our pearly queens and help take responsibility for our garments once they are created. We are all bigger and better together.” – Amy Powney, Mother of Pearl

“This is super cool because it means we’re switching impulse purchase behaviour to something that is more considered and slower.” – Natalie Hasseck, Creative Director, Onloan

The average number of times a garment is worn before being discarded has decreased by 36%, compared to 15 years ago. With this new try before you buy model, you can rent a piece and then if you fall in love, you can buy the item, minus the rental fee, safe in the knowledge that you’re investing in something you know won’t go to waste. Rent the collection at onloan.co. 

DISCOVER MORE

The C&TH Sustainable Fashion Hub / Sustainable Spring Dresses