For all of Dolly Alderton’s sins, she was right about one thing: “nearly everything I know about love, I have learnt from my long-term friendships with women.”
I was reaching the end of my second year at university when this quote was first thrust upon me, preparing for life alone in a city as my three best girlfriends prepared to scatter across the globe for a year abroad. “What will I do without you guys?” I asked. One of them replied: “Have all of your clothes in one wardrobe.”
As much as this made me laugh, it did ring true. Living on a floor with three other girls had meant that we had all signed an unspoken agreement, effectively quadrupling the size of our clothing collections, and to differentiate between the four was an almost impossible task. One of us was the go to for going out outfits, one for jackets (we lived in Manchester, so a good jacket was essential, and she had an abundance), one for funky tops, and one for accessories. Between us, we had the whole package.
The close of my second year was half a decade ago now, yet the sentiment has carried into my adult life as a permanent feature. Although slightly less convenient now that we live further than across the hall, there is hardly a week where I don’t send a message onto my ‘home’ friends group chat asking to borrow one of their tops, or an offer of ‘Do you want to have a look through my wardrobe?’ before we head to a bar for the evening.
Without really knowing it, we have all been partaking in a simple but powerful act of sustainability, just through the existence of our friendships. Borrowing outfits allows us to expand our wardrobe without the environmental (or financial) cost, to experiment without committing, and to develop our personal style more organically.
For a long time, thrifting held this space in a more individual way. Charity and vintage shops offered a sense of discovery and a slower, more conscious alternative to fast fashion. But thrifting, even with all of its benefits, is still rooted in ownership. You find something, you buy it, it’s yours.
It seems others have understood the impact of wardrobe sharing, and have been able to share the love globally - even monetise it. What’s interesting about companies like Hurr and ByRotation is how they have essentially formalised something that previously only existed in group chats or bedrooms. The difference is that where borrowing from a friend relies on trust and memory - “I’ll give it back, promise” - these platforms build entire systems around that exchange by structurally reinforcing it.
Both ByRotation and Hurr operate on a peer-to-peer model, keeping a sense of community, but with layers of protection that make lending to strangers feel as normal as possible. Payments are protected until the rental has gone through, and Hurr offers optional damage protection that covers minor repairs, so the fear of ruining someone else’s clothes is eased. Perhaps more importantly, renting makes the kind of fashion that usually feels off-limits suddenly accessible. Both sites mostly feature designer items, pieces many of us could only dream of buying outright, and then make them accessible for a fraction of the RRP. An Annie’s Ibiza dress, for example, can retail for over £1500; on these sites, however, it might be available for close to £150.
What these platforms do, really, is replicate the dynamics of female friendship - the trust and generosity a lot of us rely on - just at scale.
There are also the spaces that sit somewhere in the middle and are less structured than an app or a website, but with more formality than a group chat. Clothing swaps, like those being hosted by Loved Again London and F*ck Fast Fashion, make borrowing its most social. Set in bars or coffee shops, or permanent spaces, they turn the act of borrowing clothes into an event. They can become part wardrobe refresh, part night out. At Loved Again London, guests will bring a handful of pieces, usually with some level of curation, and leave with something new-to-them. Drinks and nibbles are offered to swappers, and there’s an emphasis on mingling and celebrating the process.
Swap shops also raise an interesting question about access and exclusivity, particularly as they move into this more traditionally ‘luxury’ space. Initiatives like Loanhood appearing in Selfridges suggest a shift in how we think about high-end fashion. Where luxury has long been defined by ownership and scarcity, these models challenge that idea entirely. If a designer piece can be borrowed, swapped, or rented, does it lose its exclusivity? Or does it simply become more democratic?
In some ways, swap shops and renting sites feel like the natural evolution of thrifting. Where second hand shopping opened up access to fashion at lower price points and sustainable practices, swapping removes price from the equation altogether. It removes the thrill of bargain-hunting, replacing it with participation in a shared system - built on mutual taste and community.
Both types of wardrobe-sharing lean into the idea of fashion as a form of connection rather than individual ownership as thrifting does. Whether it's a dress that's handed over in a bedroom, posted across the country or exchanged over a rail with a stranger, the principle is the same: clothes moving between people, continuing to carry a trace of the person who wore them before. The scale obviously changes, but the feeling of trust and shared taste that was so important to my second-year uni wardrobe(s), hasn’t changed at all.