This time two years, I was struggling with my closet. There were just too many items in there and I had completely run out of room in my closet. It was complete chaos.
I moved to Dubai seven years ago with a decent and lean sized closet. And for the first year and a half, I continued to maintain a relatively lean closet. Lean enough to share a closet. But things change when I went back to work.
I’ve always loved fashion and it was important to me to have enough clothes; problem was I could never tell when I had enough. I didn’t buy clothes because I had events to attend; I bought clothes and looked for the events to attend. And with more disposable income, nothing could hold me back from indulging and satisfying my love for clothes.
It wasn’t long before I couldn’t keep up with sharing a closet space. Many times, I’d decide to look through my clothes to get rid of clothes I haven’t worn or didn’t wear regularly. The problem however was I had many clothes I had never worn, and more I had worn just once. I’d stand in front of my closet, contemplating what would stay and what would go. Those exercises weren’t so successful, and “our” closet remained as cramped as ever.
The day my husband decided to move out of “our” closet was one of my happiest day. I felt so lucky to have all that space to myself. It also meant I could buy more clothes without feeling guilty or wondering where they would fit. So, I bought more clothes.
It was late 2017 when I started feeling a desperate need to move to a bigger house. As I contemplated it, it occurred to me that my need for a bigger house wasn’t because we had grown bigger as a family; or because my boys needed more room. I was getting desperate for a bigger house because I needed a bigger closet space. My closet was overflowing; and I was willing to get a bigger house so I could get more room for my clothes.
Realising this caused me to take a step back and seriously consider my attitude towards shopping and fashion generally. In the first place was the amount of money spent buying clothes that hung ideal in the closet with little or no wear. I realised that these monies could have been better spent if put into achieving other sustainable goals. I realised I could be just as passionate about clothes and fashion while adopting a more conservative and sustainable approach. That’s where my journey to TUTNOD began.
I am one of many women who have and continue to fill our closets with gorgeous dresses and accessories, many of which have been denied the pleasure of being worn. Surely, clothes are made to be worn; otherwise, they would be in museums.
For a couple of years prior, I’ve had an interest in fashion rental but sat on the idea from the mere thought of how much capital I would need to build an inventory of items to put on rent. But here I was, with a closet full of dresses that could be rented and shared with other women. Having a closet full of new and hardly worn clothes helped me see the potential in making luxury fashion accessible to more women in a sharing economy.
At the start of 2018, I resolved not to buy any new item of clothing. Instead, I focused on realising my passion for fashion and clothes; to pursuing my dream of making luxury fashion accessible to more women. I set a goal to start a luxury fashion rental platform through which women like myself can rent and share their closet with other women, thereby maximizing the use and value of our clothes and giving more women the chance to experience luxury fashion in ways we would otherwise, never have experienced. Because clothes are made to be worn.
