5 Types of Alternative Fashion Businesses That Don’t Produce New Clothes
By Jharna Pariani
"The most sustainable garment is the one already in your wardrobe," goes the oft-repeated quote by Fashion Revolution Co-Founder Orsola de Castro.
We found five businesses that don’t just believe that phrase, but actually live by it.
Making your mark on the sustainable fashion world doesn’t necessarily have to involve having your own clothing label. It can also come from a range of roles within the industry, alternative business ideas, and services that excite consumers about fashion in an unconventional way.
In a world where fast fashion brands are churning out new collections on a weekly basis, and landfills are overflowing with an unmanageable mess of discarded clothing, finding new ways to keep fashion in circulation (without producing more) has become the need of the hour. And this is where service-based businesses come in by offering the optimum potential for sustainable improvements.
By keeping resource consumption low and increasing the life cycle of existing products, service-oriented businesses have managed to dissociate success from the relentless expansionist growth model where increasing sales of new clothes is seen as the most important path to profitability.
These alternative businesses also go a long way in redirecting the consumer’s attention from buying yet another item of clothing to actively participating in ways to improve on what they already own, creating a behavioral shift to the advantage of sustainability.
Right from repair services to refashioning models, and clothing swaps to fashion rentals, we found five business models that’ll help inspire you to view sustainable entrepreneurship from a different, more refreshing lens.
What Are Some Alternative Sustainable Fashion Business Models?
1. Clothes Swapping
Case Study: Swap Society
For a lot of us, exchanging clothes with our siblings or friends has always been the norm. And while our motives may have simply been coveting someone else’s style and not environmentally driven, the simple act of swapping clothes can not only help you serve looks but also avoid excess consumption.
Before she founded Swap Society, Nicole Robertson realized the untapped potential of swapping clothes when she began swapping styles with women in her local community. Launched in 2017, Swap Society harnesses technology to promote circularity in the fashion industry. “Our circular business model is a sustainable alternative to the linear ‘take-make-dispose’ consumption model, which in turn helps keep clothes out of landfills and offers itself as a unique solution to overconsumption,” Robertson said.
The very act of swapping can help internalize and foster a sense of renewed value for clothes. For Nicole, “Swapping clothes is a revolutionary act that changes our relationship with our wardrobes. It is a reminder that our clothes have value and that how we get dressed has an impact on the world around us,” she said.
Even the most conscious consumer can fall out of love with their well-worn clothes and Swap Society serves itself as the perfect platform to find, “another woman’s treasure” because, “even if we no longer want something, there’s probably someone out there who does,” Robertson points out.
What makes their business model different is their alt currency SwapCoin™. The currency gives multidimensional value to garments sent in and makes sure customers get equal value for the clothes they swap, and makes it fair.
Memberships range from $20-$30 a month and include free shipping both ways. New members receive a welcome kit with a prepaid mailing label to send in their clothes and get up to 200 bonus SwapCoin™ that can be used instantly.
“Our sizes change, lifestyles change, and even our tastes may change. Some people like a lot of variety in their wardrobes. Sometimes we buy something impulsively and then realize it doesn’t work for us. Swapping provides a sustainable way to let go of the clothing you no longer want while getting new-to-you clothes that you want to wear now. It’s also much more affordable than buying brand-new clothes, and even less expensive than shopping secondhand,” Robertson said.
2. Peer-to-Peer Rental
Case Study: By Rotation
Making a recent debut in the United States, By Rotation is a peer-to-peer fashion rental app that lets you lease clothes from fellow style-conscious women in your vicinity.
The WOC-owned app has already been a hit in the UK where it is originally based, having successfully created a community of renters and lenders, who list their items for leasing on a social media-style profile.
The app’s business model is akin to that of Airbnb, where the company doesn’t own any inventory but acts as a platform that lets users connect with one another to borrow their clothes for a rental fee. The transactional element already makes this business model an attractive one for consumers to readily participate in the sharing economy.
When listing an item for rent, By Rotation recommends that each item’s daily rental fee be about 3%-5% of the item’s retail value. Renters can then peruse through over 60,000 listings on the app that can be further filtered by product type, size, and brand to name a few. Similar to Airbnb, renters can then select dates they are looking to rent for, send the request, and communicate directly with the lender, whereby lenders are ultimately responsible for cleaning the items between rentals.
Once the rental period is completed and the item is returned, renters are encouraged to leave honest feedback for their fellow rotators and share images of their rotated looks.
This concept not only encourages consumers to participate in the shared and circular economy but also embeds an added sense of value for their own clothes similar to Airbnb’s model where lenders treat their homes as valuable long-term investments.
3. Slow Fashion Styling Services
Case Study: Sophie Strauss Styling
Proving that celebrities aren’t the only ones who can have stylists at their disposal, Sophie Strauss is an inclusive and sustainably-minded stylist "for regular people". She provides a range of styling services, resources, and a ton of priceless information on her Instagram handle to equip folks with the best ways to enhance their personal style.
Unlike reality TV stylists that provided shock value by tossing 90% of every regular person’s clothes in exchange for a shopping trip that landed them a brand new wardrobe, Sophie’s approach is more considered and thoughtful.
When enlisting her services for a closet clean-out, Sophie helps customers identify the items in their closets that they love but never wear and empowers them see those items in a new light to make them wearable again. In doing so, she also helps customers identify any impulse purchases they may have made and also fill the gaps in their wardrobe if needed.
Note: To learn more about her closet clean-out process, take a look at this Conscious Style Podcast episode with Sophie Strauss.
Sophie’s services also extend to helping customers become better shoppers — people who may find shopping to be overwhelming due to infinite options, triggering, or simply unfruitful.
She has a history of working with people who are at transitional moments in their lives. Whether it’s a new job, a different body size, postpartum, exploring gender expression, or simply ready to try something different and understand what makes them feel good.
What we love the most about her approach is that there’s no standard style rulebook. Sophie has an inclusive approach that every item of clothing can suit everyone and does not support any rigid rules when it comes to styling for a certain body type, age, or gender.
4. Mending & Upcycling Shop
Case Study: Suay Sew Shop
Suay Sew Shop has been in the business of swaying textiles away from landfills since 2017. Their 5,000 sq. ft vertically integrated sewing and production shop is based out of LA where they offer a range of repair services to help consumers extend the life of their clothes and offer a new lease of life to ones that are beyond repair. Customers living outside the LA area can also choose to mail in their items for repair.
From using old and worn-out apparel to creating a memory quilt or upholstery for your home furniture, the queer-owned business is built around a clear vision of keeping textiles in circulation for longer.
Apart from upcycling, the sustainably-minded repair shop also holds a community dye bath every month with custom dips to help refresh and over-dye faded or worn-out clothes. Their expansive sewing unit and refurbishing model has also enabled them to accept textile donations from consumers looking to dispose of their worn-out clothes responsibly.
We also love the fact that they’ve used their voice to champion garment worker rights and policy reform for fair wages.
5. Repair App
Case Study: Coblrshop
No item in our wardrobes takes a beating quite like our shoes. But Boston-based startup Coblrshop is here to help worn-out shoes look as good as new with their range of repair services that cater to high-quality and luxurious footwear.
Whether it’s a heel restoration, an addition of protective soles, or a deeper repair on significant scuffing and damage, the cobblers they partner with have a lot of experience reviving well-loved and worn-down shoes.
In order to avail their services, customers can initiate a repair from a range of services for both women’s and men’s shoes, handbags, or other goods. After which, they will be sent a Coblrshop mailer within a few days that includes an empty mailer bag for shipment, prepaid UPS shipping label, an instruction card, and packaging material that come with roundtrip protection.
Once received, Coblrshop takes approximately two weeks to ship the repaired shoes back to their customers, all expertly restored and good as new, in both a shoe bag and box.
For the women who adore a great pair of shoes as much as Carrie Bradshaw and men who can tell the difference between a monk strap and an Oxford, services like Coblrshop tip the scales in favor of repair and restoration to help them keep their comfortable and prized impression makers in circulation for longer.
About the Author:
Jharna Pariani is a fashion writer and creative strategist whose work is rooted in honesty and deep observation of the world around her. When she isn’t busy penning down her thoughts, she moonlights as a video editor creating fashion and food reels on Instagram for several brands and influencers
Has this been helpful? Follow us on Instagram @consciousfashion to receive more conscious style inspirations.