Website that rents luxury accessories takes off in Hong Kong

If your glamour budget doesn't stretch to the tens of thousands, a site that rents high-end accessories might be right up your street, writes P. Ramakrishnan

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LuxTNT.com lets users rent luxury items by the day.

Published: 12:11am, 6 Jun 2014

It isn't a novel idea, but it's a good one: a website that offers luxury designer bags for rent at a fraction of their retail price.

LuxTNT.com launched in November and is the secret of savvy sartorialists, local celebrities (or their stylists) who use it to pick up rare baubles such as the Swarovski Dragon Minaudière by Judith Leiber (retail price around HK$33,000) for HK$627 per day. Others include a dual-beaded leather clutch from Valentino that usually retails for about HK$20,770 but can be rented for a mere HK$395 per day or HK$2,405 per week.

The owners of these glamorous accessories are fashion purveyor Bobo Rok, model and celebrity Rosemary Vandenbroucke and Tim Kau, a businessman with a hi-tech backgound.

Having seen a similar site in New York (and more notably in the film which name-dropped the site Bag Borrow or Steal and nearly broke it with a click avalanche), co-founder Bobo Rok says: "When we first launched, we thought why isn't there a similar site and why hasn't anyone done this in Hong Kong?"

The company's office and storage unit in Kennedy Town houses a breathtaking array of accessories from Chanel, Givenchy, Alexander McQueen, Elisabeth Koch and enough other emblematic labels to make any fashionista salivate.

Their Judith Leiber assembly is a prized collection in itself. "Leiber stopped making bags in 1998 and there are only 50,000 bags in the world she herself made. When we buy rare pieces online, we've found ourselves competing with the House of Leiber, which is buying back pieces for a museum retrospective in New York," says Rok.