How do you clothe your baby while avoiding piles of vests and playsuits that your child has outgrown within weeks? For more and more new parents, the answer is simple: rent.
Families who seek an environmentally friendly alternative to fast fashion pay a monthly subscription to companies offering ethical-branded, age-appropriate clothes and receive new outfits in the post. The clothes, washed, ironed and ready to be worn again, are sent back when the child has outgrown them, with another bundle arriving soon after. The hire fee covers stains and lost items.
Eve Kekeh, founder of baby clothing rental company Bundlee, which launched in January 2018, has seen “a huge spike” in customers since May this year. She said: “There’s more of a conversation around sustainable clothes. Parents are assessing their own wardrobes and that’s trickling down into kids’ clothes too.”
Emma Gillespie of hire company Belles and Babes said it was definitely a growing trend. “People are rejecting fast fashion. Parents don’t want to constantly go shopping for baby clothes and then deal with the mountains of items that have been outgrown.”Sustainability is now at the centre of the fashion agenda. The online secondhand market is booming, and renting clothes has gone high-end, with Vogue last week hailing “chic” rental apps.
“We’re very aware that having a baby is not good for your carbon footprint,” said Hannah Jones-Walters, 32, from Yorkshire, who has an 11-month-old daughter and signed up for her first rented bundle while pregnant. She pays £24 a month for 15 pieces of organic clothing. “We assumed it would be basic things but it’s lovely clothes. They’re well-tailored to the season and high quality.”
Some people are willing to spend more to be sustainable, but renting can actually save money. In Germany, companies such as Räubersachen allow parents to rent individual items such as winter coats and sleeping bags, which can become particularly pricey when used for only a short time.
“Wool clothes are expensive, so it’s better to borrow,” said Kasia Reszel, who has a year-old son. “That way, I don’t spend as much and he can have different jumpers every few months.”
Reszel, who works fulltime as a teacher in Berlin, said that although parent groups, for example on Facebook, enabled her to buy secondhand or make money from selling baby clothes, she did not have the time to relist items. “I don’t want to invest in things I won’t have time to sell later,” she said, “and I don’t plan on having any more babies, so what’s the point in keeping them?”
In today’s ever-smaller living spaces, keeping old clothes is often not an option. “I live in a small flat and I don’t have space to be sentimental,” said Jones-Walter. “I’d love to keep them and look back in 30 years but we don’t have room to do that.”
