Looking and feeling good with RE-STYLE

The story is very well known to people of a certain age, and to those students of social history. It’s the story of the working man and woman in the early 20th Century who, up to about the 1930s, were always able to afford a tailor-made suit or seek out the expertise of a dressmaker.

In that long ago era ordinary working men and women, even the unemployed, were seemingly always photographed wearing perfectly tailored clothes. For many people during this time, one suit of clothes would be worn on an everyday basis, and a newer, nicer suit would be reserved for special occasions.

Mass production and the “democratisation” of clothes and mass market fashion changed all that.

But that’s all so much history. The more intuitive truth about clothes today is that they affect our confidence, and most importantly positively affect our sense of self-assurance and self-worth when they fit well and look good. Today’s marketplace is filled with pent up demand from people who wish to hang on to clothes that have now gone out of style, require repair or just need to be given a lift.

Looking and feeling good are the pleasingly straightforward qualities that form the refreshingly unpretentious ethos of RE-STYLE, a company that knows the importance of how the way our clothes fit affects our confidence. “By simply tailoring your clothes to fit you, rather than feeling you have to change to fit your clothes, we're on a mission to make you feel great, whatever you choose to wear,” declares the RE-STYLE website, adding, “the most sustainable fashion choice is what's already in your wardrobe. We want to help you make your clothes last longer, supporting long lasting purchases and being able to wear the clothes that you love again, and again, and again.”

The origins of RE-STYLE are poignantly special and personal, borne as it is out of the personal frustration suffered by founder Harriet Scriven when she struggled to find a tailor, someone she could trust with altering her bridesmaids’ dresses ahead of her wedding in the summer of the first year of her MBA at LBS in 2020.

“I felt that there had to be a better solution to word-of-mouth recommendations, so I launched a curated marketplace connecting people with local, trusted tailors in London. It helped that I had previously worked at Selfridges and seen the headwinds of change towards consumer demand for sustainable fashion options, so we felt that the timing was right to launch a solution for this.”

Working as a kind of ‘talent aggregator’ for the world of tailoring services, RE-STYLE offers tailoring for new clothes, where one picks out the preferred fabric and designs, matching the right tailor and budget with the ambitions and purse of the customer. RE-STYLE also offers customers the opportunity to re-hem, adjust and restyle favourite clothes that perhaps just a requires a lift to make them wardrobe favourites once more.

One just picks the service required, views from a selection of tailoring services that match one’s needs and budget, and then books a time that best suits.

Clearly RE-STYLE offers a great, uniquely bespoke set of services for those wishing to revitalise their wardrobes or has a desire to create a new collection of clothes.

Perhaps the most attractive and distinctive part of the RE_STYLE story is that it is playing its part in helping skilled, self-employed individuals who perhaps just wish to work part-time, take on unusual assignments, or wish to keep their hand in with other kinds of work while indulging their passions in the design, repair and restyling of clothes.

Harriet tells of someone whose business failed during Covid and then took up bus driving to pay the bills. Wishing to keep his bus driving licence, and his principal income, but also wishing to return to tailoring, RE-STYLE has helped him achieve the best of both worlds.

Another heart-warming story concerns a customer who inherited a large number of cashmere sweaters as part of an estate previously owned by a much-loved relative. The problem was that none of the sweaters fitted the customer, but they wanted to hang on to them cashmere material as a keepsake. RE-STYLE found the perfect solution by locating a seamstress who was able to turn the jumpers into a blanket.

“We work with a wide range of customers and independent, highly skilled people, matching skills, talents with a passion for nice clothes – there’s something very special about that,” says Harriet.

Harriet Scriven – igniting the excitement of entrepreneurship

Prior to RE-STYLE, Harriet spent more than eight years in the retail industry, working with world renowned retailers Harrods and Selfridges. “Both stores are at the forefront of the importance of customer care and anticipating behavioural changes,” says Harriet. “I saw first-hand how being able to meet the needs of individual customers through personalisation and understanding of their shopping habits is instrumental to retail success.” This approach by leading retailers such as Harrods and Selfridges, says Harriet, is played out in today’s consumer demand for reflection of a shopper’s individual values and needs, expressing itself in trends such as the increased demand for sustainability.

Surprisingly, despite a career in fashion and retail, Harriet reveals that she has always hated shopping for standard items such as trousers. “I dislike the mismatch between how I envisaged clothes fitting and how the reality actually played out on my 5' 2" figure in changing room mirrors. RE-STYLE’s mission is a deeply personal one, but also relevant to anyone who has ever found it difficult to find clothes that fit them.”

Embarking on an MBA at London Business School

“I chose LBS for several reasons,” says Harriet. “The first being the chance to attend the Walpole programme which connects students with senior figures of the British Luxury Industry.” While researching business schools, Harriet found that there were very few with the luxury credentials and connections to match LBS and the School’s Institute of Entrepreneurship and Private Capital (IEPC). “The international community fostered by LBS was also key to my decision making: the element that I’d enjoyed most in my previous career was working within international markets and LBS’ diverse student cohort allowed me to continue to learn from my incredible cosmopolitan community of peers. Also, the academic reputation of the school meant that I knew that I would be exposed to some of the brightest minds, via both the faculty and my classmates.”

From MBA to launching a start-up

“I don’t think that anything really prepares you for the reality of launching a start-up,” says Harriet. “However, I can honestly say that I wouldn’t be pursuing this career path had I not done my MBA, especially due to the unique experience at LBS. The two-year course structure gave me the time to explore other industries and roles; in comparison to a 12-month course, there was greater freedom to follow my interests without the pressure of needing to get experience specific to a hoped-for post-MBA job.”

Without the freedom offered at LBS, Harriet believes she would have focused on going back into the luxury industry and “missed out on experiencing the excitement of entrepreneurship”.

Re-Style and the powerful importance of sustainability

Ill-fitting clothes account for a staggering 70 per cent of customer returns, which contributes significantly to carbon emissions and landfill. “The impact of this is also hugely detrimental to retailers’ bottom lines,” says Harriet. “This is something that I got to see first-hand in my previous career and is a big motivation for RE-STYLE’s current direction. By providing retailers and brands with “alterations as a service”, their customers get to have clothes that truly fit and make them feel great, helping them stay in circulation for longer, and retailers are supported with a low cost, highly sustainable solution, particularly relevant in today’s challenging business climate.”

Did you know?

• A report by the BFC’s Institute of Positive Fashion, delivery firm DHL and consultancy Roland Berger found UK clothing returns generated 750,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2022, when some 23 million garments were disposed of: around 75% of total returns. The research found incorrect sizes and poor quality were the main reason for returns, but said large retailers could reduce return handling costs by 20-40% with the introduction of sizing calculators and avatars.

• The growth of online channels and lenient return practices have reinforced consumers’ treatment of purchases more as risk-free discoveries for size and style than as end-of-shopping journeys. A McKinsey Returns Management Survey conducted just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic noted a 25 percent return rate for apparel on e-commerce channels, compared to 20 percent overall. And with the sector’s e-commerce growing about 35 percent in 2020, its returns are at an all-time high.

• A report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, with research and analytical support by McKinsey, outlines how the fashion industry might build a new textiles economy based on the principles of a circular economy, noting that today’s clothing industry leaves behind a heavy environmental footprint and that a fuller commitment to circular design can lighten it.