What if customers could improve the environment and make money by renting out their clothes simultaneously? And who do you trust to provide an honest assessment about the ethical and environmental performance of apparel products and the companies behind them?
Our first collaborative podcast with Mike Schragger from the Sustainable Fashion Academy aims to find out the answers to these questions. And in our launch podcast, he talks to Lona Alia from Style Lend and Sandra Capponi from Good On You, two entrepreneurs who believe their solutions will empower customers to drive sustainable change in the apparel sector.
Style Lend is a new online platform from Lona Alia launched 3 years ago that aims to help consumers earn money from the clothes they don’t wear – but clothes that they still want to keep. More recently, she is now talking to brands about how the concept of clothing rental could fit into their own portfolios.
“Women only use about 20 per cent their closet – 80 per cent sits there idle,” says Alia, “So this is a perfect opportunity to monetise those (items) through rentals.”
She tells listeners that her platform can also be extended beyond the use of private individuals: “The business model is very different because it is a B2B play,” she said, “we could transfer the technology to them (retailers), together with our experience of the rental market, so they could offer this service to consumers as part of a new business model.”
The idea being that ‘generation Z’ and ‘millennials’ are more open to rentals, and this platform could open up new markets to this demographic while at the same time giving retailers greater control over their branding.
In addition, Schragger also speaks to Sandra Capponi from ‘Good On You’ which is an app that allows shoppers to see ratings about the environmental and ethical performance of up to 2,000 retailers and brands.
“It’s a huge opportunity to tap into the power of shoppers … we pull together information on environmental and ethical standards and labels in fashion – of which there are hundreds – together with company public statements of apparel retailers. This allows us to give a robust assessment of their performance, which is then turned into a simple score for consumers.”
This, she says, helps consumers with their research and also allows them to shop elsewhere if they don’t agree with the particular score or ethical ratings of a particular retailer.
To hear the full podcast, CLICK HERE.
Sponsorships of the podcasts are also available. Email us with your enquiries.
