“How did you first get interested in business purpose and sustainability?” That is a question we’ve asked everyone interviewed for this website. Jade McSorley gave perhaps the most unusual answer.
“It was partly realising how unsustainable my own career was”, she replied.
Her life changed when, as a student on Teesside, she entered and was very successful in the 2009 Britain’s Next Top Model competition. That led to some years of fashion and catwalk modelling, but she started realising that her own lifespan in that world was limited. “It’s when you get the casting call for an DIY retailer’s advert you realise that it might be time to move on”, she explains!
I did point out that there are always opportunities – I could do stairlift and sensible-gardening- trouser modelling these days, for instance. But McSorley also saw sustainability parallels to her own career in the wider world of fashion, and that interest has led on to her subsequent career.
“Having that insider, fly on the wall view, I saw a lack of sustainability in much of the clothing and fashion world. I remember modelling 75 outfits in a day, but so many were poor quality and disposable. I felt I had an unsustainable career in an unsustainable industry – all these outfits only worn once, with all the implications of that in terms of waste”.
As well as thinking about these waste and circular economy issues, she was also fascinated by what the rapidly changing digital world might bring to this sector, and she wanted to “make this industry better” in some way. So, she went back to university, doing a Masters in fashion futures and sustainability at the London College of Fashion.
McSorley is well aware of the conundrum here. According to the UN, the fashion (clothing) industry is responsible for 10 % of annual global carbon emissions, more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined. It is also a sector that has issues around water consumption and plastics use, and we have seen stories of human rights violations in clothing factories – forced labour, health and safety failures and more.
The trend for “fast fashion”, with new low-cost designs constantly being developed (and bought by consumers) has also led to a huge waste problem, with less than 1% of used clothing recycled into new garments. However, on the positive side, the industry provides direct and indirect employment to hundreds of millions worldwide, provides essential goods to all of us and is a source of enjoyment to billions more.
At the high-fashion end of the market, the issues are even more complex. Many of the most expensive outfits produced might only be worn a few times, for shows, shoots or by the ultra-rich. So, is that a “waste” of time and resource? On the other hand, the quality of such items and the creativity, skill and work involved are impressive too.
Now, with two other founders, McSorley is combining her interests in fashion, sustainability and technology through LOANHOOD, a start-up which is crowd-funded and launching this summer. The LOANHOOD App will enable those who own clothes, particularly higher value / cost items, or indeed entire outfits, to hire them out for a fee. “Think of it as Airbnb for clothing”, she says.
LOANHOOD will enable the transaction and take a relatively small fee, as well as assisting with insurance and cleaning (if the participants want that). There is a partnership with Oxwash, eco-friendly dry-cleaning firm, to keep everything as sustainable as possible. Users can choose to outsource the fulfilment side of the transaction too if they wish.
“We expect the hire charge to be around 20% of the original retail value of the item for a one-week hire, but owners will set their own pricing, giving them the power to value their own wardrobe”, McSorley explains.
It probably won’t make sense if you only own a few Primark T-shirts, but might be particularly interesting for owners with impressive vintage clothing collections. On the hiring side, if you want to wear something special for a wedding, big job interview, summer prom, or your Bafta nomination, it might be just the job. There is also a “Loan a Look” feature, which “allows you to rent an entire outfit styled by the Loaner”. That might include both designer pieces and “fast fashion” items, showing that “every garment matters when it comes to sustainability”, as McSorley puts it.
At a macro level, getting more use out of clothing plays well into the sustainability and circular economy agenda, reducing waste and increasing the “output” or value we gain from each item manufactured.
McSorley talks about the changing nature of “ownership” for her generation, which LOANHOOD demonstrates. “We are embracing the idea of not owning physical stuff – we’re struggling to buy houses but are happy to share cars, music, even beds via Airbnb”. She also sees the impact of Instagram, which has some negatives from a sustainability perspective. “People are literally buying an outfit to wear it once for an Instagram post”.
This leads into McSorley’s day job outside LOANHOOD, working with the Fashion Innovation Agency at the London College of Fashion, UAL. Projects there are using digital technology in fascinating ways. For example, people are paying real money for innovative and unique “clothing” that their avatars can use in computer games – and maybe eventually our own images can wear digital clothes when we are online. Imagine rolling out of bed for a vital Zoom or Teams meeting and wearing an amazing digital suit or dress that will make your client or boss go “wow”. But in reality, you could stay in your pyjamas all day…!
“That could help the sustainability cause too - more virtual clothing and perhaps less physical product eventually”, McSorley says. She’s also been looking at concepts such as the “virtual try-on”, using technology so you see how you would look wearing other people’s wardrobes. The technology isn’t quite good enough yet to make that convincing, she says, but it will come, and could make the LOANHOOD proposition even more attractive.
Finally, I asked about her remarks during a panel discussion at the recent Vizibl Collaborate 2021 conference. She spoke then about what her generation (Millennials and Gen Z, broadly) want from an employer.
“We want to work in a company that has a fit with our beliefs – and if they talk about purpose and sustainability, they must really mean it”. But she suggests organisations do need to think about how to get the best from their younger staff.
“Let us be creative and think about the future – we can drive change, be creative technologists, and look outside the box. Think about the different roles that will be needed in the future”.
Certainly, creating fashion rental apps or designing virtual costumes for game-players’ avatars hasn’t featured in much historical careers advice! What is clear is that the digital revolution, and the drive for sustainability and business purpose, are affecting every industry, including fashion, and McSorley plans to be at the heart of that in the coming years.