'If I see a woman with a fabulous outfit, I say give me a call' - Fling Fashion Rental has designer dresses to try on and hire in Yorkshire

“These are pieces that they have very much invested in but they don't wear anymore,” she says. “They don't want to sell them so they rent them out through me and take a cut on every rental.”

Based at Mabgate Mills, a 10-minute walk from Leeds city centre, Fling is unusual in that it is an in-store fashion rental service, meaning that designs can be tried on before being hired, which is not the case with online dress hire companies.

Brands currently on the rails include Rotate, Needle and Thread, Ba&sh, ME+EM, Nadine Merabi, Gucci, Monique Lhuillier, Odd Muse, Karen Millen, Rat and Boa, vintage Gucci, Kitri and many more.

Many of the clients, both lenders and renters, are working Yorkshire women who attend lots of special events, both corporate and social, and need to look the part, but do not want to squander their hard-earned income on an ever-changing stream of clothes.

“I don't have a minimum value of dress, as a lot of other pre-loved or online rentals do because I want to make as much fashion that exists rentable,” Chloé says. “We do take into account the brand, but also the quality of the design, how rentable we think that will be, the condition of the dress.

“It's not like walking into Zara and you've got 10 sizing options in one item, but I do pride Fling on having accessible sizing, so we've got from extra small up to 22 or 3XL.

“That's exactly why I started Fling, because I was trying to rent online for one of my best friend's weddings in Tuscany, and I'd fallen in love with a dress by a brand called Maria Lucia Hohen.

“It was going to be very expensive to rent for the amount of days I needed to go abroad with it, but I didn't have the guarantee of being able to just return it and refund if it didn't fit - you still have to pay at least some of the fees or it just goes on credit for another rental. Why can't I walk into a store and try it on and only rent what actually fits me and I feel good in?”

The average rental is for two days (it can be for 24 hours), collected and returned by the renter, for which the average cost ranges from £55-75, including cleaning. “I have a contract with a brilliant dry cleaners in Tadcaster,” Chloé says. “He's so lovely to work with. He teaches me about different fabrics and how simple and easy the care of something can be.”

For items valued under £100, lenders receive 20 per cent on every rental, and 25 per cent on items valued at over £100.

Now 29, Chloé is from Doncaster. Her mum, Lisa, is a scientist and her dad, Adam, is an engineer. “So when I said to them, when I was five, ‘I want to be a fashion designer,’ I think they thought, ‘Oh God, we're going to be paying for this girl for the rest of her life, she wants to be an artist.’

“All I wanted to do was play dress up. I watched 101 Dalmatians, saw Cruella de Vil and thought, that's what I want to do for a job - although I love my dogs to bits.”

At 18, Chloé went to Leeds College of Art for an Art Foundation, then to Northumbria University to study Fashion Design, although she quit the degree to go to London, where she worked in tech, co-ordinating content for a start-up app company, and also being involved with the social media and photography aspects.

“All of those career jumps along the way have done me really well as a founder because now I have a lot of different skills,” she says.

When the pandemic arrived, Chloé moved home to her parents and began to freelance in social media marketing. “I started building clients at a time when people really needed to push their online profiles,” she says.

Another reason for going it alone was her ADHD, which she didn’t realise she had until she was diagnosed in 2023.

“For a long time I just thought, why have I got all these big ideas in my head and I'm capable of all these things, but I seem so lazy or incapable when it comes to executing things. And suddenly there's a big push on TikTok of women talking about ADHD and how it's not being diagnosed in women the same way as men at a young age, and so I went for a diagnosis and it felt like it had all the answers.

“All these things I struggled with, be the person I wanted to be, it was this thing that was getting in the way of that. And since having medication, that's what's turned everything around.

“I'm much more able to actually just carry out work and execute things because my brain's not looking for other things to do.

“The weirdest thing is it has turned me from a very type B person into a very type A person. One big thing that a lot of women with ADHD struggle with is something called RSD - rejection sensitive dysphoria - which really knocks your confidence.”

Chloé, who lives in Leeds city centre, still works as a brand strategist, designer and graphic designer.

She founded Fling in February 2024, after wondering why she simply couldn’t walk into a shop and try on dresses to rent. “I thought, well, no one is doing that,” she says.

“I started taking in stock. This was family and friends that were first lending to me. I initially actually rented a storage unit in Harrogate.

“And then I was part of a business program for creatives called Mastered in the summer of 2024, and they really gave me the confidence to just go for it and reach out to Trad Collective about putting a concession in their store.”

Sadly, this turned out not to be the right environment, and Fling was soon on the move, this time to Fabrics of Leeds, in Central Arcade, where she took appointments, until she found her current premises at Mabgate Mills, moving in at Halloween last year.

“There is such a community here,” Chloé says. “I've found my new hairdressers here, and Wren's Bakery and coffee shop. You'll come on a weekend and there's people off to dance class and skate studio.

“The change has been so drastic. Now I have our own premises to completely involve myself, consume myself in the brand and have something real and tangible to show people. I have all my stock out on show and a place where women can come and try on in our small but intimate space - it's brilliant.

“It's everything from bold prints and colours to all the sequins and feathers and embellishment you can think of. We've got some smart dresses because I started getting inquiries for formal work wear for corporate events. We've got a lot of bridal outfits, like hen party outfits. Day two of your wedding is a big thing these days. I've got a couple of informal wedding dresses.

“We've got sizes from extra small up to like 3XL. There's definitely something for everyone here.

“We work with a brand supplier, Blonde and Wise, so we have some of their dresses in stock, but also if there was something that our customers liked in this particular style or colour, they could actually still rent that out through us, without having to purchase the dress.”

With its lenders and renters, Fling is building a community of fashion-loving women. Chloé says: “If I'm at an event and I see a woman with a fabulous outfit, I will say, give me a call, and that has worked.

“These days, brides seem to have a lot of wedding events, so we have a lot of things for that.

“There might be a time where I do purchase some pieces. But it's such a shame not to use what we already have. The earth is under so much pressure, especially because of fast fashion and just how much we are consuming. I mean, I was never the most sustainable person. I really wasn't. I cared more about what I was going to wear than anything else. But, because of the nature of the business, I naturally have become more sustainable-minded and more eco-conscious.

“I'm not judging anyone, I still shop but I have definitely become more conscious about what I'm buying.”

Future plans include introducing a corporate accounts scheme for businesses in Leeds in industries such as law, media, banking. “It's a great benefit for their staff,” she says.

Chloé is also working with Smart Works Leeds and will have a pop-up at its International Women's Day padel event on March 5, run by The Padel Network. Details here

“I'm also going to be doing subscription rentals and I'm looking at credit so women give us the dress so that Fling owns it and then they use the value of that as credit on their rentals.

She also plans to stage a clothing market where women come with their items and they either rent them out through Fling, or consign it with a pre-loved business, or donate to Smart Works, or swap, like a normal clothes swap.

“I'm so glad that I can help women feel so gorgeous.”

Fling is at Suite 6, Mill 2, Mabgate Mills, Leeds, https://www.flingfashionrental.com/, @flingfashionrental