Handing over a multi-colored blue and white blouse, Ikram Cakir selects a similar item of clothing, this time in hot pink. Welcome to the “fashion library” of Amsterdam.
Billed as one of the world’s only physical centers for the rental of used and new clothes, the “big shared wardrobe” in the Dutch capital is a response to clothing waste and pollution from the fashion industry.
Hundreds of colorful pants, coats, and dungarees are sorted by brand or style and labeled with a tag indicating the retail price or rental price per day. The daily rental price varies from around 50 cents to a few euros, depending on how loyal the customers are – how often they rent clothes or how much they borrow.
For Cakir, a 37-year-old NGO campaign manager, the concept is “just really good.” “So many clothes are bought and then never used,” she told AFP. “This is a great way to wear new clothes without impacting the planet.”
According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a charity that works to eliminate waste and pollution, the equivalent of a truckload of clothing is burned or sent to landfills every second around the world.
The textile industry is also a major polluter, producing between two and eight percent of global carbon emissions in 2022, according to the United Nations.
In the age of fast fashion, average citizens are buying 60 percent more clothing than they did 15 years ago, while individual items of clothing only last half as long, according to the UN.
Fashion is responsible for a quarter of the world’s water pollution and a third of microplastic discharges into the oceans – toxic substances for fish and humans.
All of this led Elisa Jansen, together with her two sisters and a friend, to open “LENA, the Fashion Libary” in a trendy neighborhood in the center of Amsterdam. “Why did we open in 2014? Because the fashion industry is one of the most polluting industries in the world,” she told AFP.
“Try before you buy”
The LENA Library also has an online section as well as drop-off points and collection points in other Dutch cities. “Always new clothes. Good for our planet. Experiment with your style. Try before you buy,” says a poster that hangs above LENA’s counter and washing machines, summarizing the company’s philosophy.
Jansen’s career began in vintage shops, and she says she has “always worked in clothing recycling.” But the vintage store didn’t allow her to purchase new pieces and she felt it was too homogeneous a style. “That’s how I came up with the idea of sharing clothes in a huge communal closet,” she explains.
Customers register for a fee of 10 euros and can then rent or buy clothing from the collection. There are more than 6,000 members, but not all of them borrow regularly, Jansen admits.
She attaches great importance to the quality of her garments and prefers brands with a long lifespan. “We don’t have fast fashion,” she says, referring to a trend in which items of clothing are bought cheaply and thrown away after wearing them a few times.
LENA was “really one of the first of its kind” when it opened nine years ago, Jansen said. Similar initiatives have been launched in Australia, the UK, Canada, France, Scandinavia and Switzerland, although Jansen says the Scandinavian branches appear to have now closed.
It took some time to find a viable business model, Jansen admits. But its location in a trendy neighborhood now primarily attracts women between the ages of 25 and 45 “who make sustainable choices but also want beautiful clothes.”
India Donisi, a 35-year-old wine blogger, is the target audience. “It’s really practical,” she said as she tried on an “extravagant” fuchsia-pink blazer. Donisi regularly borrows clothes from the library to wear to media events, but she lives just around the corner and admits she wouldn’t drive across town to rent an outfit.
Jansen hopes her initiative will inspire others. “I really believe this is the future. Our consumption cannot continue like this,” she concludes. “I hope other clothing brands will do this too… so that you always have the option to borrow something if you don’t want to buy it.” (AFP)
This translated article originally appeared on FashionUnited.uk.