Glamour on a budget: here’s how renting high fashion is no longer taboo in a post-pandemic India
The Hindu
The reduce-reuse-recycle movement and the pandemic have changed peoples’ outlook towards renting outfits, with fashion-lovers now going beyond weddings and hiring clothes for different occasions
“Buy less, rent more,” says Thara George who founded Chosen Ones, a fashion rental range at Mini Me, a concept store in Kochi.“It’s part of ethical fashion and good for the planet,” she adds underscoring the growing idea of reuse. Thara opened the store in August 2021, along with designer Vandana Vinod, who has been championing this cause even before the two joined hands. Vandana has been recycling export surplus fabrics and now rents vintage saris, mainly kanjeevarams.
Though renting clothes has been around for the last decade or so in India, the pandemic has accentuated the idea of sustainable fashion more than ever before. Now renting attires is seen in new light and clothes are hired for different occasions other than weddings. Vandana calls it, “mindful shopping” and gives her clients styling options to wear a garment in different ways, many times. According to Thara, renting wedding attire is common but occasion wear is new.
Welcoming the State government’s decision to teach skill education under competency-based National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF), BJP MLC Shashil Namoshi has demanded that the government teach it as a separate and additional subject instead of giving an option to opt for it in place of third language.