Have you been to a library lately?

Have you been to a library lately?

I have…

But not the kind you are thinking of. I’ve stumbled upon this fashion library when it opened a few years ago. It’s amazing how you can live in a city for ages and still find hidden gems like this.

LENA The Fashion Library was founded by a creative team of three sisters and their friend, all of whom are passionate about fashion, vintage and sustainability.

LENA is the first fashion library in Amsterdam. The shop carries mostly very well preserved vintage clothes, but has a growing section of new, eco-conscious clothing as well.

LENA is located in a beautiful light building in the center of Amsterdam. The shop’s interior is well thought out with modern concrete floors, beautiful changing booths and minimalistic shelving. There isn’t any musky smell that you’d expect from a vintage shop. And then there are the clothes… I was in heaven! Rows and rows of garments arranged by color. Here I found an eclectic mix of fashion era’s, textures and fabrics.

After browsing through the clothes for a while I was really impressed with the diversity and quality of the clothes. Another pleasant surprise were the prices. In LENA fashion library you can either subscribe and borrow clothes (like in a real library) or just buy them. The basic subscription starts at just 19,95 euro per month. I have chosen a 200-point subscription, where you can borrow clothes with the total sum of 200 points at a time. The most expensive item in a library is valued at 100 points. You can keep borrowed clothes for as long as you like or return them the next day and borrow something else instead.

The sign up process was very simple and took just 10 minutes. I had to fill in some forms and have a headshot taken for my new library card. And then it was shopping time! I’ll let you see what I took home soon.

I am very curious about few things: Will I use this library often? Will there be enough clothes to keep me interested? Will the quality of the garments remain high?

Do you have a fashion library in your city?