Culture & Lifestyle
The rise, fall, and rise of fashion rental business
Kathmandu’s fashion rental stores, which were dealt a huge blow by the Covid-19 pandemic, are now making a comeback.Pinki Sris Rana
Between January and March, Adita Karki had six important social events to attend. For the six events, she needed six different traditional ethnic attires.
One day when Karki was scrolling through Tiktok, she came across an account run by 1st step rental store, a business that rents out party attire. Since then, the store has been Karki’s go-to place to rent saris and other traditional clothes to wear to events.
“Had the rental places not existed, it would have cost me a fortune to custom-order six different outfits for so many parties,” says 21-year-old Karki.
In 2019, Kathmandu started witnessing a growing number of fashion rental stores. The majority of these stores rented out party outfits for people to wear to social events, thus relieving people of the financial burden of buying new dresses. But as the Covid-19 pandemic gripped the country in 2020, social events started getting cancelled and people began worrying about contracting Covid-19 by touching and using rented clothes. The growth of fashion rental stores then came to an abrupt halt. However, with the number of Covid-19 cases decreasing, fashion rental stores are now making a comeback.
In the last four months, Karki has not only rented outfits from fashion rental stores but has also encouraged her friends to do the same to avoid having to pay for dresses they are going to wear only once in a while.
“Another factor that has contributed to the popularity of fashion rental stores is social media,” says 24-year-old Nista Neupane, the owner of 1st step rental store. “Young people want to look fashionable at social events, and in this age of social media, where people post their pictures, they no longer like the idea of wearing the same outfit to multiple events. But purchasing a new set of clothes for every event is impractical for many. So the only sensible option is to rent attires for events.”
The idea of starting a fashion rental store came to Neupane in 2020. That year, she custom made a lehenga to wear to an event. The dress cost her Rs 13,000. “Since it was a lot of money, I decided to offer the lehenga for rent, and many came forward wanting to rent it. This incident motivated me to start a women-oriented fashion rental business.”
Nuepane operates her fashion rental store out of a rented flat in Anamnagar. The store’s location is not what many would deem ideal, but Neupane says that hasn’t hindered the business.
“We rely strongly on TikTok to promote our store and our products, and the majority of our clients come to us after seeing our videos on the video-sharing platform,” says Neupane. “Thanks to platforms like TikTok, it has become much easier for businesses like ours to make our presence in this market.”
One of the early movers of Kathmandu’s fashion rental business is Antidote Nepal, which started in 2019. Unlike 1st step rental store, Antidote Nepal started as a platform for people looking to offer their clothes for rent and those looking to rent clothes.
“The whole fashion rental market got hit badly due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Our business went down by 90 percent,” says Antidote Nepal’s owner Manish Jung Thapa. “Given the state of the market, we decided to pivot and stopped renting clothes and we now only sell used clothes.”
Another fashion rental business that started in 2019 and also served as a platform for both renters and rentees is A and S, Rent the Runway. The store has since changed its business model and rents out its in-house designed clothes and sells readymade kurtas.
“After the pandemic hit the country, the number of people sending us their clothes to rent out started declining drastically, and it no longer made sense for us to continue with the rental model. We started making our own kurtas and started renting them,” says Anita Dahal Paudyal, owner of A and S, Rent the Runway.
But given the steady decline in daily Covid-19 cases, some former fashion rental store operators the Post spoke to say they are optimistic about restarting their rental business.
“If things continue like this for the next few months, we will be restarting our fashion rental business,” says Antidote Nepal’s Manish.
One of the main reasons the rental business has become a huge hit has to do with affordability. Depending on the clothes, most rental stores charge anywhere between Rs 500 and Rs 1,500 per dress.
“For just about Rs 1,000, I get to wear the latest Rajasthani lehengas and saris. For students like us with no source of income, renting party clothes for events is much more cost-friendly than buying one,” says Karki.
Another factor that has helped popularised fashion rental is the hassle-free process.
“We ask our clients to deposit either their citizenship certificate or college ID and some advance money with us. Our clients have to return the dresses within three days,” says Neupane.
Most fashion rental stores the Post spoke to say that the standard amount of time given is three days.
“However, if clients fail to return dresses within three days, they’ll have to pay additional Rs 500 for each day,” says Paudyal of A and S, Rent the Runway.
In neighbouring India, some of the country’s top designers have also tied up with businesses to offer their collections for rent. But in Nepal, the fashion rental business is still completely dominated by non-designer wear.
One of the few Nepali designers to try the fashion rental business is Yubi Thapa, a renowned name in Nepal’s high-end fashion industry. After witnessing the increasing popularity of the fashion rental business internationally, Yubi started renting his designer wear in 2013, but the experience, he says, wasn’t a pleasant one.
“In Nepal, the fashion rental business is dominated by party wear, many of which require users to take great care of the clothes. When I started renting out lehenga cholis, people didn’t take good care of the attires and returned them in damaged condition. After a year of renting, I was losing more money than I was making so that’s when I decided to stop the business altogether,” says Yubi.
Given the surge in popularity fashion rental businesses have seen in the last few years, Yubi says that renting designer wears is a great way to make them more accessible to the masses.
“But renting high-end designer wears also jeopardises the brand’s exclusivity. Why would people buy when you can simply rent?” asks Yubi. “Instead of taking the fashion rental route, I now conduct an annual sale every year to make my clothes more affordable and accessible to many. I don’t see myself getting on the fashion rental bandwagon anytime soon.”