‘We play dress up’: Inside the Leeds business which is bringing style to rental fashion
Here’s how a Leeds woman is making renting a dress a premium experience 👗
When Chloé Mead was looking for a wedding guest outfit she saw renting a dress as a more affordable and sustainable option compared to buying.
However, when looking online, she found it impossible to know if options would be her size or suit her style.
Fed up with the guess work, Chloé came up with an idea to do things differently.
She created Fling, a fashion rental business which offers customers an in-store try-on experience so they can be confident that they have found the right fit.
“I want to make rental fashion accessible because the trying-on experience is the most crucial part of shopping,” Chloé told the Yorkshire Evening Post.
“If you don’t know how good you feel in a dress, you have no trust in it.”
Fling has grown from an idea created on a kitchen table to a thriving business in Leeds city centre.
At the showroom on 43 Park Place, prospective renters can book a 45-60 minute appointment where they can try on a range of clothes personally picked out to suit their taste.
They can then pay to hire their favourite item for as little as 24 hours.
Once an item is returned, it is dry cleaned, good as new for the next renter.
For Chloé, the most important part of her job is to help make clients feel comfortable enough to try something new.
The 29-year-old said: “We honestly just have a lot of fun playing dress up.
“There is apprehension at first because it is such a new concept that [clients] have usually not done before but so many times they try on dresses that they normally wouldn’t pick out for themselves and they realise just how much it suits them and how much more playful that they can be with fashion.”
The dresses and jumpsuits on the Fling rails are loaned from women from across the local area who gain commission each time a dress is rented.
With labels including Victoria Beckham, Zara, Selkie, and Dolce and Gabbana, some options have been loved by previous owners while others have never been worn.
As well as this, because inclusivity is at the heart of Chloé’s one-woman fashion brand, clothes in the showroom range from sizes 4-28.
Chloé said: “All of our dresses are so unique and so different that everyone really has the opportunity to find something really special.
“Sizing matters because everyone deserves to be able to wear something that they love. On some level this is a premium luxury service but that doesn’t mean that anyone is excluded.”
Alongside reducing fast fashion demand and textile waste, Chloé sees renting as a cost-effective way to access fresh clothes.
She highlighted that as adults can find themselves with busy social calendars, hiring an outfit can alleviate the constant pressure to buy outfits you’ll only wear once.
When you look around the Fling showroom, you see sequins, sparkles, and a rainbow of outfits, waiting to be worn by someone new.
Music plays in the background and there is coffee on standby to make the intimate experience of trying on clothes as relaxing as possible.
Working in fashion began as a childhood dream for entrepreneur Chloé.
Now it’s her reality.