In September 2020, KLEIHD by SHAREaLOOK will open its doors to Zurich residents. The ongoing crowdfunding campaign #sustainkleihd should contribute to a successful start and make the boutique the first Swiss rental fashion hub. In addition to the borrowable women’s clothing, women will also find baby clothing there, as well as sustainable premium labels, and can use the boutique as a station for peer-to-peer fashion exchange.

Why fashion rental makes sense – The fashion industry produces up to 150 billion items of clothing a year. According to the Global Fashion Agenda, the global volume of clothing and shoes produced is expected to increase by 81 percent to 102 million tons a year by 2030. Such growth does not come without consequences. According to the United Nations Environment Program, greenhouse gas emissions from the fashion industry will increase by more than 50 percent over the same period. So while consumers buy more and more clothes, they wear the individual items of clothing less and less often. The clothing industry is already responsible for around eight percent of global C02 emissions. The year 2030 is crucial here, because it is set as the deadline of the Paris Agreement in order to keep global warming from rising by 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The fashion rental boutique KLEIHD was founded in 2016 as an association of committed volunteers. After four years the association decided to hand over the project to the partner company SHAREaLOOK in order to facilitate further growth. “The founders of SHAREaLOOK pursue the same mission as we do and have the energy to drive the project forward,” sais Alena Zehr, club president of KLEIHD.

“We believe in the power of consumers and would like to work with them to establish a new understanding for fashion. The disposable culture of the fast fashion industry is harmful to the environment and disrespectful to the textile workers who make our clothes,” stated Natalia Marassi and Pia-Maria Laux, founders of SHAREaLOOK.

How Fashion Rental works

The fashion rental boutique has a range of around 1000 high-quality items of clothing, from business and everyday clothing to evening dresses. Through new collaborations, the range is expanded and geared towards higher quality. The SHAREaLOOK team also plans to strengthen the KLEIHD boutique with a seamless online & offline presence. Customers can sign-up for monthly memberships and borrow up to five items of clothing per month for CHF 60. At sharealook.com styling appointments and outfits can be booked to the day. Women can then pick them up at the boutique or have them sent home.

In addition to the KLEIHD range, members can create their own profile on sharealook.com, upload pictures of their clothing and offer it to others to borrow. Just like you can do with your own apartment on Airbnb. The boutique serves as a meeting point for picking up and returning the borrowed looks.

About the current Crowdfunding

The crowdfunding project #sustainkleihd was started in late June to ensure a smooth restart of the boutique. Special memberships are offered during the crowdfunding campaign. Instead of only 5 items per month, members have unlimited access to the more than 1000 looks in the rental collection by signing up at a monthly rate of CHF 60. The money collected is used to refresh the range and take over the inventory of the predecessors. To support the project, go to Sustain Kleihd’s project page on crowdify.

About SHAREaLOOK

SHAREaLOOK is a fashion tech startup, which has made it its mission to enable the transition of fashion into a circular industry. The company was founded in April 2019 as part of the Circular Economy Incubator of the Swiss Impact Hub. On sharealook.com, individual consumers, as well as brands or shops, can offer their garments to lend or rent looks from others.

Pia-Maria Laux