‘Lease a fleece’ business model looks to become latest fashion

The ‘Lease A Fleece’ initiative by Mud Jeans centres around a sweatshirt/hoodie which is partially made from recycled organic jeans that anyone can lease for a flat, low monthly rate.

It works by allowing customers to either pay upfront for the fleece or in monthly instalments. When paying upfront, the customer pays 100 euros, including a 20 euro deposit, and can continue to wear the hip sweatshirt or hoody as long as he or she wants.

Upon returning the sweatshirt, the customer gets their deposit back in the form of a discount on their next purchase.

If a customer chooses to pay in installments, an entry fee of 20 euros is paid. Then a lease fee of 5 euros per month is applied, to a total of 80 euros.

After the lease period the customer has three options: they can continue to wear the fleece, return the sweatshirt and get back their deposit; or switch to a new fashion item for an additional fee of only 7.5 euros.

The fleece is made from recycled denim blended with viscose, is responsibly produced and is available in a men’s and a women’s model. It will initially only be made available to investors on the crowdfunding platform, OnePlanetCrowd.com.

It follows the introduction of another pioneering fashion concept ‘Lease A Jeans’ which launched earlier this year. Also devised by Mud Jeans, under this scheme clothes are never thrown away as old jeans are collected and recovered so that all the raw materials and recycled fibres can be remanufactured into new clothes.

Mud Jeans is a young Dutch fashion brand that believes its innovative concept fits seamlessly into the current trend where using products responsibly is more important than ownership.

It recently won an award for its efforts, the Circle Challenge from a Netherlands-based business-led collaboration platform, The Circle Economy.

Maxine Perella