Vegas themed birthday parties. Weddings. Office holiday parties. How many times a year do we go out and buy a nice dress for an event, only to never wear it again?
Enter Rent the Runway *- a great dress rental service that stocks high end dresses that you can rent. They’re professionally dry-cleaned and repaired in between every use, then retired and sold to end-consumers at a discount when they’ve been worn a certain number of times or are no longer “in season”. (So your rental should be in good shape when you get it, they’re not rented indefinitely.)
Designed to help people fulfill their dream of showing up to an event in a Kate Spade, Vera Wang or Herve Leger dress (which might retail for $1,000 and be rentable for less than $100), I love the site for a different reason. It’s minimalist AND environmental.
Think of the number of dresses sitting in the back of women’s closets only to be worn once or twice a year… or in some cases, never again. How awesome to rent a dress instead. It takes up no closet space, it reduces the environmental strain from the manufacturing process, you would have cleaned the dress if just you had worn it anyway so the dry cleaning nets out even, and they ship it in a reusable tote bag that gets mailed back to them when you’re done. (Again, a dress you buy would have been shipped somewhere, also.)
I LOVE IT.
Another great feature of the site is the number of women who leave photo reviews of the dresses. The dresses I’ve rented had photos of dozens of women in the actual dress, with notes on their size, height and weight and how they felt the dress fit. I could easily navigate which styles would likely be flattering for my body type given that I’m only 5’3″ tall and have a long torso.
I’ve rented for several special occasions now – a gorgeous, flowy orange dress for a summer wedding in Maine, and a super fun sequined eyelash dress for a Vegas themed 40th birthday party. (See below.)
Never in a million years would I have purchased a sequin dress with a giant eyelash on it, but it was perfect for an all-out Vegas themed party. Guys showed up in everything from Hawaiian shirts to tuxedos, and there were at least five of us in full sequin dresses hanging out on the garden terrace or playing black jack. Rent the Runway meant I showed up in something besides a little black dress; which was really fun.
How it works: You choose a date and search for available dresses in your size. You can filter by occasion, sleeve length, dress length, color and other criteria if desired. You wear the dress, and then send it back by your specified date. Not sure it will fit? Make sure you read other user reviews before picking a size, and take advantage of their “free back-up size” or their $30 for an additional rental policy. I did this for an event and it was fun to have the two styles to choose from; I still spent less than $100.
If you have an event coming up, or even if you want to wear something fun and different and go out to dinner for a nice date night with your partner, Rent the Runway is worth checking out. Any time we can reduce our environmental impact AND the clutter in our closets while still looking and feeling fabulous, it’s a win-win situation in my book.
So maybe treat yourself to a fun dress to wear for New Year’s Eve, or the Holiday Pops concert in December. I try to book in advance so there’s a better selection.
Happy sequin-ing!
*Looking for my disclosure? I have no relationship with Rent the Runway, they gave me nothing to write this post. I recommend things because I love them; I have no relationship with any brands. My relationship is with this planet, and my less-cluttered closet 🙂
UPDATE – September 2016
I still love the environmental concept of Rent the Runway, but I’ve had two experiences now (out of a total of 4 rentals, so not a great track record) where the dress suddenly became unavailable and they shipped me a substitution. Once, the substitute dress was no longer appropriate for a work party and I had to find something in my closet. It happens; you’re essentially sharing a designer wardrobe with other women, if someone doesn’t return something in good condition or on time, it might not be ready to ship. But it’s a big disappointment when you reserved the perfect dress months ago, only to discover it’s not coming after all. Sometimes what they send is even better… but not always.