My Wardrobe HQ is the first fashion rental marketplace in the UK, stocking luxury womenswear fashion items. The platform gives the opportunity to brands and individuals to put items up for rental and for sale, being mainly focused on upcycling items through rental but also having the additional feature of offering purchasing opportunities for second hand designer items. Having both the rental and purchasing options, the platform allows consumers to try items before buying, hence ensuring minimal waste is produced within the fashion market.

The luxury fashion industry is facing two major environmental impact challenges, the first one is ensuring the preservation or natural resources which are used in production. As high-end fashion is based on raw and unique materials, securing a supply of these materials that give brands a competitive advantage is a key aspect in the success luxury firms have seen throughout history. As restoring and regenerating limited natural resources exploited by these brands, the high-quality natural materials might become more and more expensive and less accessible to the public. The second major challenge of luxury fashion brands is linked to the first one, as companies must invest and identify new types of sustainable natural resources or create substitutes for current raw materials through production and design innovation. The process of harvesting such new solutions might also negatively impact the environment, high fashion brands being focused on material resistance and appearance rather than sustainability and item circularity.

Moreover, in the past 15 years, global clothing production has doubled to meet demand of the public and this increased appetite has seen the clothing and footwear industries account for a combined estimate of 8% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, making fashion the third highest polluting industry in the world. The value of unused clothing in wardrobes has been estimated at around £30 billion. It is also estimated that £140 million worth of clothing goes into landfill each year. A 2016 McKinsey report discovered that three-fifths of all clothing items are incinerated or end up in landfill within a year of being produced.

High fashion rental is a solution which maintains the rare natural materials in use whilst enabling a higher number of people to make use out of the lifespan of a high-end product. Re-using the limited raw materials by enabling customers to have access to an item for a limited period of time ensures that luxury goods enter into a circular economic model. My Wardrobe HQ requires its users to register either as customers or suppliers before renting or buying any items. The company's model which enables a customer to rent a clothing item between 4 and 14 days whilst having the facility or purchasing, allows people to try on items before committing to a purchase, ensuring a conscious purchase and so fighting against fast fashion models. The company also ensures that the rented items are being maintained at the highest standards to promote their dry cleaning, ironing and repairing the worn items.

My Wardrobe HQ is driven by sustainability, the ethos of the company being to give a new life to pre-owned and past-season luxury goods through introducing them into circular economy.

The company states that:

They can extend the life cycle of a garment by up to fifteen times.

They can offer an additional way for brands and retailers to sell through pieces that either didn’t make it into production, or didn’t sell through at the end of each season.

They can encourage customers to buy better, buy less: through education, consumers will discover that better quality items are often made with more stringent processes that don’t – or have less of – an impact on the environment

They plant a tree for every rental and sale places on My Wardrobe HQ, so every transaction has its carbon off-set.

They will lessen the pressure on virgin resources, and tackle the growing problem of waste management.

The company is committed to becoming fully sustainable, hence the rental options are being taken care of through their partnership with other brands:

Blanc Living dry cleaners uses only non-toxic, biodegradable detergents and pure water.

Green Couriers the UK’s leading environmentally-friendly courier company and delivers parcels on a fleet of modern vehicles that run on engines in order to protect the environment.

By extending the life cycle of one person’s clothes by just nine months, the environmental impact can be reduced as much as 30 percent.