Circular Costume Ireland
A circular clothing economy serving Irish consumers, film and TV sets, and theatre productions — finally with a custom platform that handles both purchase and rental properly.
Circular Costume Ireland are building a circular clothing and costume economy — supplying recycled, second-hand, and reusable wardrobe to Irish consumers, film and TV productions, theatre sets, and shows. The product is genuinely different. The problem was the platform. The old WooCommerce setup struggled to handle the hybrid purchase + rental model — every workaround was complex, fragile, and stunted growth. Customers had a poor experience, the team couldn't track sales and rentals cleanly, and the brand was being held back by the tooling, not the demand.
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Two Audiences
Productions, Film & TV Sets
Wardrobe departments, costume designers, and production buyers sourcing sustainable, period-correct, and bulk wardrobe for film, TV, and theatre — buyers who need a serious, set-ready supplier.
Conscious Consumers
Irish customers buying and renting recycled, sustainable wardrobe for everyday wear, themed events, and one-off occasions — backing a circular alternative to fast fashion.
The Challenge
The previous site ran on WooCommerce and couldn't cleanly handle the dual model the business actually runs on — purchase and rental, side by side, with stock that moves between both. Every workaround was complex, every change needed a developer, and tracking what had been sold vs. rented vs. due back was a mess. Customer experience suffered. Growth stalled. The platform was the bottleneck, not the brand.
WooCommerce couldn't handle rental + purchase
Off-the-shelf WooCommerce isn't built for hybrid sales-and-rental inventory. Every workaround needed complex fixes — and most of them broke under real-world use.
Bad customer experience
Confusing flows, unclear stock availability, and patchy rental functionality meant customers were dropping off mid-checkout. The product was good. The journey wasn't.
Sales & rentals impossible to track
Without a clean backend, the team couldn't reliably see what was sold, what was out on rental, what was due back, or what was actually in stock. Growth was being held back by admin.
Production buyers had no real route
Film, TV, and theatre buyers expect a credible, easy-to-browse wardrobe source. The old site didn't position the brand for set-level work — leaving real production revenue on the table.
A Platform Built From Scratch
WooCommerce wasn't going to solve this. The build was a full custom platform — Next.js front-end, a bespoke React-based backend, and an inventory engine designed from day one around the reality of the business: every garment can be sold, rented, returned, and re-listed. Customer accounts, production-grade browsing, and a clean admin panel that finally lets the team manage 1,000+ products without fighting their own tooling.
Custom Next.js front-end
Modern, fast, mobile-first storefront — built from scratch around how customers and production buyers actually browse, search, and check out.
Bespoke React backend
Custom backend designed for the hybrid model — every product carries its own purchase and rental state, tracked cleanly across the lifecycle.
Purchase + rental in one flow
Customers can buy or rent from the same catalogue. Rentals have dates, returns, and condition tracking built in — no plugin workarounds, no fragile fixes.
Customer accounts
Logged-in customers can repurchase, repeat-rent, and track their history. The friction of buying or renting a second time is gone.
Production-ready catalogue
Multi-category catalogue built to scale to 1,000+ products — searchable, filterable, and browsable in the way wardrobe and production teams actually work.
Easy product uploads
Custom admin panel built around the team's daily workflow. Adding, editing, and listing new items is fast — no developer needed.
Retro brand identity
A confident retro aesthetic that signals the circular, second-hand ethos while still feeling premium enough for serious production buyers.
SEO + sustainability story
Every page is engineered to rank for sustainable wardrobe, costume rental, and production-buyer keywords — while telling the circular economy story.
Platform Partnership
A custom platform isn't a one-and-done build. Circular Costume Ireland went live with an ongoing partnership covering hosting, performance, content, and continued platform development as the catalogue scales past 1,000 products.
Project Gallery
Homepage · Reloved Clothing + Screen-Ready Gear
Catalogue · Buy + Rent in One Inventory
Product Detail · Vintage Wrap Dress
Community Pricing for Productions & Students
The Results
The custom platform replaces a WooCommerce setup that was actively stunting growth. The promise: a customer experience that converts, a backend that the team actually wants to use, and a catalogue ready to scale past 1,000 products without the platform falling over. Sales, rentals, and Search Console data publishes here at the 30 and 90-day marks.
📊 Sales, rentals, and Search Console data publishing here at the 30 and 90-day marks.
A bespoke platform built to power Ireland's circular wardrobe economy
Outgrown WooCommerce or Shopify?
If your business model needs more than an off-the-shelf platform can give — let's build the system your operation actually runs on.