Residence > Life
Julie Capelle, Agence France-Presse
AMSTERDAM – Ikram Cakir palms her a multicolored blue and white shirt and selects an identical garment, this time in sizzling pink. Welcome to Amsterdam’s “trend library”.
Billed as one of many world’s solely bodily hubs for renting new and used garments, the Dutch capital’s “large closet sharing” is a response to clothes waste and air pollution from the style business.
A whole bunch of brightly coloured pants, coats and jumpsuits are sorted by model or type, every with a tag indicating a retail value or how a lot it prices to lease the merchandise per day.
The worth of day by day rental varies from about 50 euro cents ($zero.55) to a few euros, relying on buyer loyalty: how typically they lease garments and the way a lot they borrow.
For Cakir, a 37-year-old NGO marketing campaign director, the idea is “simply good.”
“Loads of garments are purchased after which by no means worn,” he explains to AFP.
“This can be a nice technique to put on new garments with out depleting the planet,” Cakir added.
Globally, the equal of a truckload of clothes is burned or buried in landfills each second, in response to the Ellen MacArthur Basis, a charity targeted on eliminating waste and air pollution.
The textile business can be a serious polluter, inflicting between two and eight p.c of worldwide carbon emissions, in response to the United Nations in 2022.
Within the period of quick trend, the typical individual buys 60 p.c extra garments than 15 years in the past, whereas every merchandise of clothes is saved solely half as lengthy, the UN says.
Style is chargeable for 1 / 4 of the air pollution of the world’s waters and a 3rd of microplastic discharges into the oceans: substances poisonous to fish and people.
All this prompted Elisa Jansen to open “LENA, the style library” in a stylish space of central Amsterdam, along with her two sisters and a buddy.
“Why did we open in 2014? As a result of the style business is without doubt one of the most polluting on the planet,” he advised AFP.
‘Strive before you purchase’
The library additionally has a web-based part, in addition to drop-off and pick-up factors in different Dutch cities.
“All the time new garments. Good for the planet. Experiment along with your type. Strive before you purchase,” reads an indication hanging above LENA’s counter and washing machines, summarizing its philosophy.
Jansen’s profession started in classic shops so she mentioned she has “at all times labored in clothes recycling.”
However the classic enterprise didn’t enable him to buy new objects and he discovered the type too homogeneous.
“That is once I got here up with the thought of sharing garments in an enormous closet,” she mentioned.
Prospects join by paying a price of 10 euros, permitting them to borrow or purchase garments from the gathering.
There are greater than 6,00zero members, however not all are common debtors, Jansen admits.
Their prime precedence is the standard of their clothes, at all times preferring extra sturdy manufacturers.
“You will not discover quick trend right here,” she mentioned, referring to a development wherein garments are purchased low-cost after which thrown away after only a few wears.
LENA was “actually one of many first of its sort” when it opened 9 years in the past, Jansen mentioned.
Related initiatives have been launched in locations together with Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Scandinavia and Switzerland, though Jansen mentioned Scandinavian shops appeared to have closed since then.
It took a while to discover a worthwhile enterprise mannequin, he admits.
However its location in a modern space now primarily attracts ladies between 25 and 45 years outdated “who need to select sustainable choices but in addition need lovely garments.”
India Donisi, a 35-year-old wine blogger, is the audience.
“It is truly very handy,” he mentioned whereas attempting on what he referred to as an “extravagant” fuchsia-pink jacket.
Donisi usually rents garments from the library to put on at media occasions, however she lives across the nook and admits she would not go throughout city to borrow an outfit.
Jansen hopes his initiative conjures up others.
“I actually consider that is the longer term. Our consumption can’t proceed as it’s,” he mentioned.
“I hope different clothes manufacturers even do it themselves… so that you at all times have the choice to borrow should you do not need to purchase.”
© Agence France-Presse