"I Will Never Buy New Again": Lizzie Shankland on Pre-Loved Fashion and Building The Didsbury Wardrobe

She swore off fast fashion, borrowed a friend's wardrobe and built a pre-loved dress rental business around her day job.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Shankland is a part-time teacher, a qualified stylist and the founder of The Didsbury Wardrobe, a pre-loved dress rental business in Manchester. It started as friends swapping outfits and has grown into try-on-first rentals, personal styling, fashion shoot styling and a place on the runway at Manchester Fashion Week.

What makes her story worth reading is how little of it was planned, and how much of it she nearly talked herself out of. In this conversation with Bethany Wright, Lizzie is funny, honest and kind about the things that held her back, and the things that finally didn't.

Raised Among Fabric, Mortified by Charity Shops

Lizzie was born in Leeds, grew up in York and has lived in Manchester since university. Her mum's family ran a haberdashery, and her mum was a dancer who handmade the costumes. Charity shops were a way of life in the house, which is exactly why Lizzie rebelled against them as a kid.

"I was that girl who was in Topshop, the changing room for seven hours with all of my friends just trying on everything."

The Rabbit Hole That Changed How She Shops

During COVID, Lizzie watched a couple of documentaries on fast fashion and it hit hard. She had been buying from some of those companies three or four times a week. So she set herself a goal. It is very rare that she breaks it now, and when she needs a specific piece for a client, she tries to find it pre-loved.

"I will never buy new again."

Three Dresses, None Fit

The Didsbury Wardrobe began with a wedding. Lizzie didn't want to buy something new, so she rented three dresses to be safe. None of them fitted, and by the day before she was spiralling. A friend invited her round, she went through her wardrobe and left with the perfect outfit and a much nicer experience than any rental.

That was the spark. Dress swapping between friends followed, then a spreadsheet, then a lot of people-pleasing, and eventually the idea of making it a business.

"Girls, why aren't we utilising what we have?"

A Year of Talking Herself Out of It

Lizzie had never done anything like this before. At 43, she wondered if it was a midlife crisis. She wanted everything to be polished before she started, and she spent about a year talking about it before doing it. In the end, the people around her pushed her over the line. A friend who coached her said to just put it out there, and her exercise class set up the Instagram account the same day.

"I was genuinely scared to do it."

She is clear that the business was never about the money. "I didn't start it to monetise it. I did start it to be putting less clothing and waste out in the world." That is also why she wanted people to try on before they rented, with no obligation. Online never worked for her, and she wanted the experience of being looked after.

Becoming a Stylist

Customers kept asking Lizzie to style them, and she kept saying she wasn't a stylist, even though she already was. "I was literally styling people. And I was literally doing that job." The course felt out of reach financially. A few hundred pounds short a week before the application deadline, she decided to give it to the universe. Within days, a customer renting several of her priciest pieces for a holiday covered it.

She qualified with distinction. Her favourite advice from this chapter is to play: wear a dress as a top, pin it differently, find one piece you've never worn and work out how you'd wear it, or wear only what's in your wardrobe for a month.

Saying Yes to the Radio and the Runway

Lizzie has stopped saying no. A pop-up stall for the NSPCC turned into a fashion show, with a BBC interview ten minutes before she went on stage with a microphone. That led to a regular slot on BBC Radio Manchester, and later she walked the runway at Manchester Fashion Week with the Susty Club.

She is still teaching, three days a week, and has no plans to stop. She loves it, values the safety net, and knows that if every opportunity had to pay, she would have turned down some of the best things that have happened to her. "Some of the most amazing moments I've had through doing this have been unpaid."

The Back She Used to Edit Out

Lizzie had major spinal surgery as a teenager because of scoliosis, and she lives with scars and a curve in her spine. For years she dressed to blend in. When running The Didsbury Wardrobe meant filming herself in every dress, she edited every video so nothing showed.

"I was editing every single video so you couldn't see anything. And that was damaging me."

After a meltdown she caught on camera, she chose to show people instead. It hasn't made her immune: she told Beth she was unkind to herself again at Manchester Fashion Week. But it has shaped what she says to the women she works with: look in the mirror and say seven nice things about yourself every day, and mean them.

What Lizzie's Story Teaches Us

• Play with what you own. Your wardrobe is a toy box before it is a problem.
• Perfectionism delays good things. Lizzie lost about a year waiting for everything to be polished.
• You can keep your day job. A safety net can be what lets you say yes.
• Say yes to unpaid opportunities. Some of the best moments don't come with an invoice.
• Be kinder to yourself. "This is my one body, my one chance, this is me."

A Final Thought

If you've ever stood in a changing room being quietly horrible to yourself, if you've ever had an idea you kept talking yourself out of, or if you've ever wondered when you stopped playing with your clothes, Lizzie's conversation is for you. Listen to the full episode of Notes from the Not There Yet.

Listen and watch the full episode 

Find Lizzie: Website | Instagram

Not lost, not arrived, just not there yet.