“I thought we must be able to carry on this love affair that we have with fashion in other ways,” says Jade McSorley, co-founder of rental platform Loanhood, which specialises in promoting emerging and independent designers, as well as allowing users to rent out their own wardrobes. “As a business, our main goal is to keep clothes in circulation.”

With all three co-founders coming from a fashion background, they were used to the idea of stylists borrowing items for shoots and celebrities loaning looks for red carpet appearances, and it seemed like a positive solution for both the consumer desire for new clothes and the (slightly cheeky) practice of buying things, wearing them once, then sending them back. “[Rental] puts the power back in the consumers’ hands, so they feel like those behaviours can be positive rather than detrimental,” McSorley says.

Unsurprisingly, it was pioneering small businesses and start-ups like Loanhood that led the way in the fashion service revolution, but even fast fashion brands are hopping on the bandwagon, having witnessed just how quickly fashion consumers have embraced new business models. The likes of H&M, Zara and Uniqlo have all launched repair services, with the latter launching a complementary online repair advice platform too. The Restory, however, was way ahead of the curve. Launched in 2015, it now boasts partnerships with brands and retailers including Farfetch, Harrods, Selfridges and Harvey Nichols. “We are trying to give people an easy and trusted way to engage with these [aftercare] services so that they can fall in love with their favourites all over again. We want to give people that jolt, that new feeling when it comes back from us and it’s in a box, it’s wrapped, it’s cleaned,” says Vanessa Jacobs, who co-founded the platform after she found repairs services in London wanting after a move from New York.

Upcycling, styling and rentals: why we’re buying less stuff and more services