Fashion rental app By Rotation and Uber partner to help deliver ski clothing

By Rotation, one of the U.K.’s most popular peer-to-peer fashion rental platforms, announced on Wednesday a partnership with the ride-sharing app Uber. 

From now until May 31, By Rotation users in the U.K. can rent outfits from others in their neighborhood and have them delivered via Uber within 60 minutes at a 10% discount. Though the discount applies to all users, the service is geared toward those renting ski gear. By Rotation said that 30% of the ski renters on its platform look for same-day pickup, and this partnership seeks to alleviate the annoyance of renting bulky, expensive ski gear and having to lug it around.

The partnership is fun and timely. Previously, By Rotation teamed up with Airbnb to provide rental wedding outfits for guests attending destination weddings. It was another creative collaboration that sought to meet consumers where they are. Right now, ski clothing has become quite the fashion symbol online as the sport remains a popular pastime across Europe. 

Eshita Kabra-Davies, the founder and CEO of By Rotation, told TechCrunch that the partnership came from “listening to our community,” and that the company realized that, though consumers love how sustainable renting clothing can be, they also wanted the “speed and convenience of e-commerce.” 

“With one in four rentals made within 48 hours of an event, logistics was the final friction point,” she said. She called this the “emergency economy,” or the moment of “satorical panic” when someone realized they needed an outfit immediately. Usually, when this moment comes, a person has to run out to make a “panic purchase” for a new outfit. “We have wanted to change this behavior by removing the one thing standing in the way — logistics,” Kabra-Davies said. 

Teaming up with Uber makes consumers move from “fast fashion” to “slow fashion,” she said. Fashion remains one of the most polluting industries in the world. As a result, the sharing economy — or the circular economy —has become popular among young people looking for more sustainable, and often more affordable, ways to buy clothing.

When users renting in their neighborhoods go to the app’s checkout page, they will be prompted via a pop-up banner to use Uber Courier, where the By Rotation discount will automatically be applied.

“It gives our community the luxury of choice; they can now secure a high-quality, high-value piece over a disposable garment, simply because it can reach their door just as quickly,” Kabra-Davies continued.

Kabra-Davies launched By Rotation in 2019 and has scaled it into one of the world’s largest peer-to-peer rental platforms. The platform has more than 1 million users (like song writer Ellie Goulding), she said, and it manages luxury inventory worth more than $100 million. With this, the company has expanded beyond being a fashion rental platform, Kabra-Davies said. 

“A powerful example is one of our top lenders who actually used her wardrobe earnings to fund her IVF journey, which has led to successful surrogacy,” she said. Next, the brand hopes to keep building the “world’s largest shared wardrobe.” It’s already launched in New York and has its eyes on the UAE. “Our ambition, like Uber’s, is global,”  Kabra-Davies said. “We want to make the ‘rotating wardrobe’ the default mode of consumption everywhere.