This Model-Turned-Collector Just Opened A Dreamy Vintage Dress Store In Paddington
MONDO MOMENT
By Victoria Lewis | 3rd July 2025Lily Rendall doesn’t buy new clothes. Instead, she restores them – renovating styles that span generations and turning a passion for the past into Brisbane’s first vintage dress hire company, Mondo Hire.
A rare twenty-four-year-old who abstains from vicious trend cycles, Rendall is a born contrarian, poised beyond her years, and possesses the same elegant sensibility as a young Audrey Hepburn. Following in her great-grandmother’s footsteps, with a zest for life and an utterly fabulous wardrobe, she has cultivated a business with a point of difference – and it’s all deeply rooted in love. A love for the art of garment-making, a love for the influential women in her life, and a deep love for ‘what came before’ in fashion.
She shows this same affection for her childhood home, which was ripe with mondo grass growing in bushy tufts – later becoming the namesake of the business. Her rental collection of vintage garments, now housed in her pristine Paddington storefront, is a true testament to the idea that good things take time. She tends to her vintage dresses much like you would a flower garden: carefully curating and pruning, cultivating and growing her collection, now 250 garments strong.
But caring for these delicate treasures, as Rendall has come to find out, is no small feat. She leans into the lost art of mending, spending hours painstakingly hand-stitching cigarette burns out of ’80s party dresses or pulling stains out of vintage D&G – her secret is vinegar, cold hand wash, and clove oil (you’re welcome). She says it takes a small army of professionals – local tailors, cobblers, and seamstresses – to restore these garments to their former glory. But to Rendall, it’s well worth “investing in pieces that you can actually repair and… regularly service, as you would a car or a phone.”
To Rendall, vintage fashion is “wearable art” – an untapped world of creativity, craftsmanship, and connection itching to be explored; stories just waiting to be told. For her, renting these dresses to the modern woman is about continuing a legacy – continuing the stories of the women who have come before. “There’s probably lots of people before us that have treasured these dresses and we’ll never know the stories, but by wearing it yourself, you get to add your own story.”
As to what she looks for in a dress? That’s simple: “It needs to have character.” By looking through her treasure trove of 1940s wedding gowns, old-school designer minis, and delicious ’90s slips, it’s clear she’s got an eye for the unique. With vintage, she says, the secret is to stay “open-minded, experimental, and [to trust] the vision – trying things on.” With 80 years of rich fashion history to choose from at Mondo, there is room for everyone to rent a dress that speaks to them, then pass it on to the next wearer. “It’s a really fun way to dress, to enjoy special pieces and [to] make it worthwhile.”
Rendall thinks we can all find our home in vintage fashion. All we have to do is look back, get inspired, and embrace the subtle irony that vintage dressing is fashion-forward – and the rest, they say, is history.
Want to shop her curated collection? Head to Mondo Hire at 37 Latrobe Terrace, Paddington.
