Hello and welcome to down to earth a podcast created by the Environmental charity hubbub. This season is all about fashion. Because would you believe it the fashion industry produces 10% of all carbon emissions and clothing production has roughly doubled since 2000. Alongside that one garbage truck full of clothes is being burned or dumped in landfill every second. So we want to discover why we're buying so much, and how our wardrobes impact the world around us. I'm Sarah Duyvil. And I've been working in the environmental space for seven years. But I've always been a big shopper. I love fashion and I love new clothes. And however much I learn about what the fashion industry is up to, I still find fast fashion a hard habit to break. And I find it really difficult to know how to dress sustainably. I know I'm not alone in that feeling. So I want to bring you with me as we meet the designers, experts and changemakers who unpick why our wardrobes aren't working for us and for the planet. Today, we're gonna be talking to Lucy Hall. She's one of the founders of the rental app, Lone hood, some of you might have heard of it or even used it. And we're going to be talking about how rental fits in to a more sustainable future for fashion, and how renting could become something that people do every day rather than just a for a special event. I hope that you enjoy the conversation.
Thank you so much for having me. I've listened to this podcast for many years. And I'm very privileged to be honest. So thank you for having me.
I want to kick off we asked the US question of everyone, but to get everyone to describe the outfit they're wearing and why they picked it. So today,
it's a little bit grey outside after being so sunny and nice. And I'm in the office today I've been travelling quite a bit because we've got lots of pop ups all over the place. So I was wearing comfort and wearing Vasia trainers. My mom's old jeans, which I love this so comfy and a paid out jumper because the air conditioning in here is quite real and my co working space so little cosy little warm. But yeah, just chill today very much a chill day.
But you're on this stainability vibe with all your brands and your mom's trousers Yeah.
Yes have to be have to be better. Should we both like rented really? Shouldn't I but damn it. Yeah,
yeah, alone heard party dress.
Right should become a swing fanboy in front of our emerging designers, but not today, quite often, but not today.
And I wonder if you could introduce yourself to everybody listening. And also give us a little introduction into what loanhead does. Sure. So
my name is Lucy I, one of the cofounders of lone hood. We are a kind of circular fashion business, we're probably most known for our app. So we have a fashion rental marketplace, which we launched last year. And we also have a Swap Shop, which also is very popular who doesn't have a Swap Shop. And we've been running that since about 2020. And yeah, we're all about community. So we kind of say we're a community that swaps rents and changes fashion for the better. Because you know, only together we're actually going to make waves in this world. We can't rely on anybody else.
And what how Why did you come to set it up? Because there's three of you who run it right, but not all of you were in fashion. You weren't necessarily working together before what brought you together and what made you decide to launch this.
So we'd all been doing different things. Actually, Jade and I are best friends for many, many years, I was a model agent working in the fashion industry and Jade was one of my models. She had been on Britain's Next Top Model. And she had come in two models one and we were like, oh my god, we're from the same place and became your best friends. And she after like a long time modelling in the industry, she decided to go back to uni and start studying again, because she's really she's very, very intelligent, young girl. She's doing a PhD at the moment. But she went back to LCF and studied her MA and fashion futures. So really debating what the future of the fashion industry looks like. And at this point, I'd left the model industry and gone to open my own restaurant, which is where my journey was sustainability had really started. That connection between eating locally and seasonally is much more prevalent. We understand that that's more sustainable, better for the planet. But then when you think about fashion, you don't even doesn't even come into your mind. So I was thinking about sustainability in the food world. Jada gone back to uni to think about it there and then Jen was in graphic design. He was working at a big retailer and decided to leave because she too wanted to use her skills for something better. Jade came to me with this idea like oh my god like let's create this like huge shared wardrobe where we can all just like borrow each other's clothes like just like the fashion industry does for photoshoots and for like events we were already doing it they're like let's democratise it as bring it to the people. I was like, oh my god, mate. This is nuts. Like this is amazing idea. Let's do it. Yeah, you know like mine. below and then we went to Jen, like, we've got this amazing idea like, can you build us a logo? And she was like, oh my god, I love it. Can I get involved? We're like, Yeah, let's do it.
It's like a big party. Yeah,
yeah, we were like, you know, at the pub, like chatting and like getting so excited about it. And then the pandemic hit. We were like, cool. No one's gonna be renting for a little while.
Nobody's gonna be wanting to go into anyone else's wardrobes.
Yeah, but we've actually already kind of tested the idea with the clothes swap. So we'd actually Lottie who used to work for you guys came to us and said, Hackney Council are looking for a swap partner. Do you guys want to do it? We were like, Yeah, sure. We'd like to explore about the circular economy, let us test our AI rental idea through a really entry level way, community driven way to exchange clothes. And that just blew up like the first day, we had a queue around the block people we said you could bring up to 10 items at that point, our first one and we had like 1000s of clothes, just like pile like, Oh my God. And from there, it kind of just snowballed. Like after the pandemic was over, we'd already got a bit of a reputation for the swaps. And then we started building out the rental app with a dev team. And then from there, it's kind of the rest is history.
There was a we did a swap together. I can't remember when it was I think it was during the pandemic but I had the lines were insane. Like so many people around the block people bought their dinner and they were like eating it in the back of the swamp because they'd been queuing so they could get there. It was just like, it's such a, like inclusive space. Everyone's having a really good time that people are also like proper swappers like serious swappers? Yeah. Oh, yes, the
serious swappers. And we've really built a community around the swap space because people travel all over London to come to the different ones that we do still, in Kensington, we did some in Peckham. And then of course, we went to Glasgow with you guys. And what we're finding is that swapping in London is really well known. And people are really into it. And it's a little bit newer for people outside of London. So it's great to go to those cities like Glasgow, we're doing something in Manchester, where we can really educate people, because they come back, oh, my God, this concept is amazing. I'm like, Yes, of course, like how much stuff you have in your wardrobe that you're not wearing loads, absolutely loads, do you want to get rid of it? Do you wanna get something new to you? They're like, yes,
let's do it. I don't want to spend any money. And I want to take you to the charity shop or throw it away, which I guess is a nice thing about renting as well in that. So we had an elf room community kitchen last week. And obviously, she rents the jacket through you guys. But that, you know, people are leaving little notes in the jacket saying where it had been. And it gets to, you know, pick up stories along the way and then get passed on to the next person, which is the nice thing about renting and swapping that you get this kind of continuity of narrative between people rather than just it being something that sits in one person's wardrobe. And it brings value back to the clothes that
we wear, because disposable fashion and fast and ultra fast fashion that has grown over the past decade, it's lost, there's no value in those clothes you buy now, because you know, you're going to wear it once and check it out. Whereas if you're starting to wear things that actually have a story, you feel more precious for it. And the kind of understand it a bit more you value it more, I think that's something that has been lost. And that is really coming back with slow fashion with a circular economy. People are thinking wow, like if I actually buy better, and I can rent it out. Or if I buy better, I can swap it for something that is just as good. So hopefully, we're moving away from that fast and ultra fast fashion. But only time will tell we're doing our best.
I want to talk about the app a little bit because for people who don't have loan heard, I think there's some quite obvious differences between loan hood and some other rental companies I could think of in that. I think other rental companies I might look at if I was needed a dress to go to a wedding or I wanted something to go to an event is looking for kind of one off pieces that might be out of your price range normally and loan heard, you can tell already for the design. It's like super bright. It's really young. There's like lots going on. And it seems more like something that people might rent for a night out or for every day or you know something a bit more. What's the word I'm looking for, rather than just this one off special event? They're trying to bring new things into their wardrobes to wear all the time?
Yeah, absolutely. That's something we've been really conscious of from the beginning of building that community and what did they want? And how can we make rental accessible to as many people as possible. We're all about empowering people to create their own sustainable futures. So if you tell them that you can, they can rent out their wardrobe. Like I said, they're gonna buy better in the long term. And how we kind of differ from the other rental platforms is we have a feature called loan the look so you can style two or more items together into a look so it brings in as lower price items that you probably wouldn't be able to rent out on their own. But if you can style them together, then you can rent someone's whole outfit so you're renting style, not just fashion And we also have this kind of real niche towards emerging designers and independent brands. So people that are already thinking of fashion as a business, and supporting the next generation of sustainable creators, because ultimately, we don't really need to produce any more. It's It's said that there's enough clothes on a planet right now to code the next six generations of people. If we stopped production today, we could clear the next six generations of people. It's crazy. However, that's a whole industry, a whole creative industry that we don't want to lose, like, we love fashion, and upcycling and repair so important to the circular economy. But we know by supporting these young small batch, local, you know, UK based emerging designers, that they are going to have a huge say in where this industry goes. And if they are going to start designing for circularity, with with end of life in mind, like how can I design something that's good for rental, so it'd be a bit more lightweight, maybe it's got modules, so you can have multiple functions to it. So we know that supporting these emerging designers is really imperative to creating a future that we want for the fashion industry, because it's not going to go away. It's not going to die. We're not going to stop buying things. But if we can give people viable alternatives to the current system that were on the right path.
I wonder if you could tell me about some of the designers that you have on loan hood. I've started following a couple of them now because you showed Instagram. But I thought it'd be nice for people to kind of get a picture of what they could get on the app.
Yeah, of course. So obviously, and the Ella was on the podcast last week. She's amazing. Ethan Leyland isn't another designer who's Incredibles. He's based out of Liverpool. He did an internship with Oscar de la Renta, he's a CSM student, he makes the most incredible corsets, he made a dress for George and Don working class guy worked his way up. He is super talented, like bright corsets with feathers, and just an all about sustainability. He goes into thrift stores, pulls out like two pound like 80 style dresses and like embellishing them and upcycle them into these amazing creations. So definitely check out Ethan on the app, we have a new designer called Nydia Jackson, who does his amazing like twill dresses are really flamboyant. So we have like the more kind of day to day call edgy pieces like Ethan later. But then we have these really out there. Wild, bright, bold dresses, it's all about big embodying that alter ego. So I just love her. And then we have somebody like Tabby who's from reconsidered. Here's an up cycler. And she has things like these gorgeous pyjama sets on there that you could take away to like a hen party, and upcycled denim. And yeah, it's quite a broad spectrum. But they're all passionate about sustainability.
And how does it work normally with these pieces, so is it that you like rent by people who are close to you? And you go and pick them up? Or do they get posted? Like how long do you have them for if somebody was going to go onto the app now and wanted to rent those core sets? How does it work?
So the long term goal is to build hyperlocal communities. So what does that mean? It's like, what we know about rental is, it can get a bad rap for the postage of going back and forth, you know, it's emissions, it's actually cost to the people that have to ship it back and forth. Getting relying on the delivery service sometimes can be a bit of a nightmare. So what we envision is having these creative hubs where you can drop off and pick up your items, or you can meet people in person. So with Ethan, we actually met him at a Liverpool pop up that we did, we hosted a two day event worked with the university worked with all these amazing creatives to come in, bought some influencers, both local people, they got to meet each other, try on the clothes and start building forming relationships. So that then they can go into the app and be like, Oh, I'll meet you at the, you know, Liverpool train station and pick up my piece for tonight. And I'll get back to you next week. But right now, that's not necessarily possible because we aren't as big as we would like to be. But we're always growing. So right now, if you go into the app, create an account, you don't need to pay a subscription or anything is free, you can browse the app, and then you request to rent from somebody, they get notified and they say yes, it's available on these dates. And they can either ship it out by DVD, or you can meet in person. And currently the rentals are for a week at a time just to kind of eliminate any stresses that people have about those like really short rental periods, where it's like, Oh, I'm gonna get it out next day. So yeah, we do it a week at a time. And it's all done through our app at the moment.
We're amazing. And yet, the Ethan is who I was thinking of who I follow, so I saw him making one of the courses on your Instagram, and then immediately it's like I have to have what there's so much stuff out there like you were saying about Alter Ego. It's about like stuff that I wouldn't necessarily pick up in a shop but that I would love to wear for a night or that I would love to take on holiday or you know have fun have something special if I want it to feel slightly more out there and different. Honestly, every time I wear something that's rented, and it's like,
I would never buy this piece like, let's be honest, this crazy jacket with a big face on the back, and like wool, all these embellishments on the side, I'm not going to buy that I'm probably going to wear it once or twice, but I rented it for an event we had that weekend. So many people stopped. We went, oh my god, I love this. Where did he get it from us like it's one of a kind, you can't buy it. It's by an incredible graduate from Liverpool jumbo University called Lily Jones. Check it out. She's on my Instagram, the picture of me wearing a jacket. And you know, she's a young designer, and now she's getting like loads of people asking about her jacket. And obviously, I just love all the attention anyhow, like thank you so much. It's amazing. Go check out alone hood, a walking advertisement for the brand. Exactly. I
was gonna say you're just pulling people in with the cool jackets. This is a little bit about what Aniela was talking about last week with the jacket, where she said a woman was like she only ever wears really dark clothes and really beige things, but she wore the jacket. And she was I feel like I'm bringing attention to the maker rather than bringing attention to myself, which is actually a nice way of thinking about putting on these like big, bright bold things that you wouldn't normally wear. And I wonder if that kind of thing is has that bought more people to loan heard, I read something and said like the rental market is going to grow by something insane like 10% every year until 2027. So it's something that people are coming around to, I guess in a bigger way. Have you seen that since you guys started
100% You can see with resale of course, you know people have been shopping secondhand for decades. However, technology took it to the next level and it grew and now it's outstripped traditional retail with its growth. So people are now thinking that rental is an evolution of resale is just another cog on the circular economy and the smoother we make that journey easier make it for people, the faster it will grow and it's really an untouched market outside of London like we do have lots of customers across the country but again like when I say Manchester this weekend telling people about rental that I get a big sense, but it's just getting the word out there and getting more people doing it. I think people have reservations about renting like oh I'm going to spill something on it or what I damaged it or what if it gets lost in the post there's like so many things that people get concerned about but it's like once they've rented once and see the journey goes smoothly they're like addicted. We find that with swapping as well people get addicted to the swap. But it is just like you know yourself like how many times if you like damaged items beyond repair stains if you spilled red white jade started like chocolate cake and address from retiro, another like great rental company. And she was like, Oh my God, I've started a chocolate cake is a New Year's Eve. But set it back and they washed it it's fine status food. You know, it's I think we just have to like sometimes take the plunge and try something different. Because if he does, it will always kind of liken it to meat free Mondays. If you just do like one, one thing, one time, you don't buy an outfit something for something new and you rent it instead. Like that's one step in the right direction. If we all do small things, it adds up to big changes.
And I think maybe another thing, certainly what I think about what I think about renting is like, oh my god, what if I pay for this thing, and it doesn't fit or actually it looks horrible on me, which I guess that would be the benefit of having something more hyperlocal where you can just go and meet somebody down the road and pick something up and try it on if you need to, or, you know, take it home, try it on and send it back. It doesn't have to be this thing where we're kind of going across huge distances, might be a way to make people feel a bit more comfortable.
Yeah, that's definitely an issue that we're trying to mitigate. And we do offer we host pop ups quite often so that people can come in and try on the clothes. And there's lots of more technology coming into play where you can see heat maps of your body, you can see that specific dress on other people. So that is definitely things that will happen in the years to come, which will make the fit issue because as we know what people do is they order multiple sizes from one place, get it sent to their house, try it on send all the other stuff back. And as you and I know, that is incredibly damaging to the planet because they've been generally just burn it on the return. I mean, they're trying to redo the whole return system and know that brands are looking at charging people to do that these days. But yeah, it's been going on for ages. So there's a big issue around fit across the fashion industry because it's just it's not consistent. What was the size 10 in one brand is a size 12 and a different is a size 14 It just doesn't add up. So yeah, size is always going to be issue but what we try and say is that your style, style it out. If you can style it out, keep it if not send it back and we'll look at doing a refund for you.
And how do you think the I guess how easy is it to change those behaviours, something we've been talking about? On this one Outcast is the kind of cognitive dissidence, especially for young people in that it's a generation. You know, our generation and below are the most aware about sustainability, the most interested in sustainability, but also the most likely to buy the most fast fashion and consume the most because they probably under the most pressure to do so. And I think it's a really difficult time to be deciding how you want to live your life, how you want to be sustainable, you know, the options are many, and it can be hard to know which way to go. So how do you think we can influence people's behaviours, I guess, to make these more sustainable choices?
Yeah, I think it's so conflicting. And with the rise of social media, and their mass marketing and greenwashing that's done on people, who knows what's right, people say like, what is sustainability? Like, who knows anymore, it's, it's been like, pull through the mud so much. How I tried to how I see it is this just doing those small, incremental changes to your day to day like, you know, if you go to Zara and buy something, like, don't be super hard on yourself, but just be conscious that next time, go to a swap instead, or rent that piece out. So you're doing something like you might have bought a Zara dress, but you got to rent it out, and multiple people going to wear it. And just really like, look at your so it's hard when you're a young person, and you're just starting your fashion career, you're just building your own wardrobe, you probably got some bits from your mom, you've been thrifting, and you've been Depop. You don't have like, eat like you said before, you don't really know what your style is. Yeah, and you're really like trying to cover it. So like swapping is a great way to just test an experiment. It's free. He just started do that through just like rotating your own wardrobe. So I think like find a local swap, run one yourselves with your friends. I know when I started working in an office, we used to bring like all of our clothes and be like, Who wants this, he wants that I don't want it. I need to have a whole new wardrobe by the end of the day. I think it's just doing those small things that are really accessible. And try and keep yourself educated. But I know it's so hard out there because so many conflicting messages across social media and the news and whatnot.
That was one thing that you think that industry could do tomorrow to make a change to help the planet. What would it be?
Well, I think they're doing it is regulating greenwashing. I think that it's coming into, I mean, obviously Europe is ahead of us. And there's some what people can actually say a bit like, how we do it with food, where things are sourced locally, etc. There's an amazing platform called fairly made, they work with brands to build up the whole supply chain, so they know who the manufacturers are, and then they can then give that information to the consumer. So I think regulation will be something that that those above which often don't do anything to help us and everything's left in the consumers hands. They are trying to actually regulate what people what brands can say to consumers to help us try and navigate. What's right, what's wrong.
Yeah, I completely agree. I think transparency is actually the biggest thing that will help people to be able to make decisions that you say you shouldn't be, shouldn't feel bad for whatever decision you make. But at least if we're able to, like make educated decisions based on real information, rather than kind of having half the story or not really knowing or not wanting to know if we know exactly what the consequences of a decision we're making are, then I think it opens everything
up. 100% Education is the biggest weapon that we have for against climate change, because the more that people know, and can understand the more influence that we can have.
Thank you so much for listening to my chat with Lucy. If you want to go and find out more about loan heard or enjoyed the app, I'll drop a link in the description of the podcast. And if you've tried renting an outfit for an event or you've never tried renting before and you've got some hangups email in and we can talk about it. My email is hello@hubbub.org.uk This podcast was presented by me Sarah duyvil, created by hubbub and produced by any day
