On a trip to Las Vegas, she treated herself to a trip to the herve leger boutique. She slipped on a short, form-fitting navy-blue dress. She stared at her reflection in the dressing room mirror and loved the way the V-neck dress looked on. Just for fun, she decided to try on another outfit at the designer’s shop — a $1,000 little black dress.
She liked that one, too.
"All the Hervè Lèger dresses are beautiful," said Kacar, of East Brunswick. "They are made to fit supertight and show off curves. They make me feel like a million bucks."
But Kacar couldn’t afford those designer dresses on her high school teacher’s salary.
So, after trying on the outfits, she didn’t buy her dream dress after all. Instead, she rented it.
Frock for rent
Rent the Runway, a new New York-based online dress-rental service, shipped a purple herve leger dress "romantic bandage" dress to Kacar — in fact, to the hotel in Las Vegas, where she returned to celebrate her birthday. She wore the frock to dinner and the club, then shipped it back four days later in a postage-paid envelope. No worries about dry-cleaning, either — the firm does that before renting out the gown to the next birthday girl.
And all for $150 — or roughly one-tenth what that the dress would have cost Kacar if she had bought it.
Men have long been able to rent a fancy outfit at a tuxedo shop for weddings and other swank events. Now, thanks to services like Rent the Runway and others, women can enjoy a little commitment-free fashion too.
It’s a way to get through the holiday season’s many parties — New Year’s Eve, anyone? — on a budget. And by using Rent the Runway, which just celebrated its one-year anniversary, women can wear a dress once and not risk being seen in it again.
"If you go out one night and there are a million pictures of you on Facebook, you don’t want to wear the same thing again," Kacar said.
Women can rent a dress in two sizes, to ensure fit, and keep it for up to eight days. The dress arrives in a garment bag, along with a prepaid envelope for returning the dress, and a few fashionista must-haves — a sample of Versace perfume, double-sided tape and makeup-remover towelettes. The company also rents out jewelry and handbags. (And it sells, but does not rent, the specialty undergarments — think adhesives — fancy gowns sometimes require.)
"When we started Rent the Runway, it was a recession and women were thinking about cost per wear of outfits," said Jennifer Fleiss, co-founder of Rent the Runway.
Rent the Runway is not the only site devoted to renting high-end fashion. Avelle.com — originally known as Bag Borrow or Steal — focuses on renting out accessories like high-end handbags and jewelry. Wear Today, Gone Tomorrow, which also launched last year, rents out designer herve leger bandage.
Runway tries to stand out with customer service — giving full refunds if the dress does not fit and providing a care package with the dress, including the same dress in another size, in case the one selected doesn’t fit.
The idea behind Rent the Runway started at Harvard Business School, where Fleiss and co-founder Jennifer Hyman, both New Yorkers, met. Their love for fashion was fostered over weekly lunches. But the idea of a fashion rental shop was born during a Thanksgiving break, when Hyman sat in her sister Becky’s room as she prepared for a wedding. Becky Hyman had a closet full of herve leger dresses — but "nothing to wear" because her friends had seen her in all of them already. After Fleiss and Jennifer Hyman discussed that problem, Rent the Runway was created as a solution.
For more info- http://www.freeezinearticles.com/2011/01/02/every-woman-can-play-cinderella-herve-leger/
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