Would you share your closet with a stranger?

For By Rotation, the largest clothing rental app of the moment, creating a community is extremely important too. With more than 50,000 users, the app works through ratings and reviews that give the community an idea of ​​what each profile is like. Completing reviews also makes users acquire benefits in the app and access more exclusive garments. For example, a new user would not be able to rent an item of clothing worth more than $1,000 if she had never had a positive review.

According to Eshita Kabra-Davies, founder of By Rotation, the app has managed to bring together a group of diverse profiles: students, teachers, people who work in banking, in the world of business and law, members of the aristocracy (Lady Amelia Windsor), actresses (Karla-Simone Spence) and even influencers (Camille Charriere, Hannah Strafford-Taylor). The success has led Kabra-Davies, who used to work in the financial industry before launching the app, to recently be included in the prestigious Forbes 30 under 30 list.

“Respect is fundamental in our community,” she says. “When you want to rent a garment you have to contact the owner of it and tell her, for example, that you would like to wear her Vampire's Wife dress for a wedding. In the end, the other person is the one who decides if she rents it to you or not. The relationship is sometimes so close that I myself have made friends with some users to whom I have rented clothes more than once. It's quite common, actually. In the end it is as if you had access to the closet of an acquaintance.

¿Compartirías tu armario con una desconocida?

Although this type of application has allowed us to socialize during the pandemic, the health crisis has forced them to adapt quickly. Tulerie, for example, has eliminated cancellation fees and has asked its users to be honest about their health status. By Rotation, for its part, has introduced guidelines and recommendations to safely deal with COVID-19 (including the mandatory washing of the garment at the time of sending it and at the time of return); has begun to collaborate with Oxwash, a specialized ecological laundry service with discounts for its users; and has proposed sending packages via courier service and not doing it in person.

The benefits of a shared closet

It is estimated that, in Europe, 40% of the clothes we have remain permanently intact in the closet, so initiatives like this are the perfect opportunity to reduce the impact generated by the amount of clothes we buy. As Kabra-Davies explains, making the leap into a shared, ephemeral wardrobe has changed not only her style but the way she shops. “Something I have realized when I see the clothes I buy and the clothes I have been uploading to the app is that since I use By Rotation I am buying higher quality clothes. Right now I buy, on average, a couple of clothes every six weeks or so. When I worked in the financial sector it was triple. Sometimes even more. I am much more conscious about what I buy and what I consume. Do we all have to buy the same dress? Can't we share it?"