The global fashion magazine July 12, 2025
Fashion
Henrik Støvring’s Re:Circle shops help people move their pre-loved clothing on in a “rent-a-rack” concept imported from Scandinavia, and have already saved 50,000 items from going to landfill
Danish-born Henrik Støvring, the man behind the New Zealand second-hand retailer Re:Circle, brought the concept from Scandinavia. Re:Circle’s “rent-a-rack” concept originally came from Finland, before making its way to Denmark, where buying, selling and swapping second-hand clothing is mainstream. With two stores under his belt in Hamilton and Onehunga, he recently opened a third on Hurstmere Road, Auckland, where the Commons restaurant was formerly located.
Re:Circle differs from the existing consignment store model commonplace in New Zealand, where seller and retailer split the sales 50–50. Instead, sellers rent a rack, curate, and price their items, and Re:Circle takes 20 per cent to cover the rental and administration. The stores are also dog-friendly.
Re:Circle has managed, in just 12 months, to create a highly engaged community of sellers, and the company has saved 50,000 items from going to landfill.
‘It’s your own little shop within a shop,’ says Støvring. ‘I didn’t invent it from scratch, I just turned it Kiwi. It’s something that has developed and evolved over many years in Scandinavia. It takes the workload off the sellers and the buyer gets to shop a huge selection of quality clothing.’
Eighty per cent of the items for sale at Re:Circle are clothing, while the remainder is a mix of homewares, tools and sometimes vinyl.
In some cases, sellers had their own shops which have since closed. They had been selling online or on Facebook Marketplace but grew wary of the hassle. ‘Here, people can try it on, see if they like it, and the deal is done,’ says Støvring.
Fledging fashion designers also use Re:Circle to test the market in the retail space.
With Aucklanders alone consuming 24,000 tonnes of fashion clothing per annum but retaining only 7,800 tonnes for continued use and wear, Re:Circle’s business model makes sense.
According to Mindful Fashion, 500 kg of textile waste goes into landfill in New Zealand every five minutes.
‘For me, setting up Re:Circle is 100 per cent about reuse and sustainability,’ says Støvring.
He has fitted the stores himself using renewable or second-hand materials. Most store accessories, other than the coat hangers which he wanted to be uniform, are second-hand. •
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