Two years after the launch of Girl Meets Dress, the first and leading online Luxury rental destination, founder Anna Bance recalls how progress is being made to fulfil her dotcom dream
Having discovered that women wear 20% of their clothes 80% of the time, we launched Girl Meets Dress as an easy and fun solution to not repeat outfits.
When we launched back in 2009, the recession psyche was a huge traffic driver and interest factor for us as a company and we were one of the first 'alternative ownership' models.
This week we partnered with the car sharing and rental service Zipcar, along with a whole host of other businesses seeing the potential in offering rental services including ParkAtMyHouse, which offers people space on their driveways, Mini-Lodgers, which shares baby and young children equipment, plus Deskwanted, Store Mates, One Fine Stay and Rdio.
Zipcar produced a report on The Business of Sharing in the UK which reveals that this new pay-as-you-live lifestyle is changing the retail paradigm, and estimates the market in the UK at £22.4 billion.
Pippa Goodman, a trend consultant at market research firm The Future Foundation, says the practice of renting is here to stay: "This is a trend where we see long-term growth potential," she said. "As a nation, we're being a lot smarter and savvier with our money. We also still have a need for luxury items and rich experiences - finding a more cost efficient way to do that is simply the next step."
Certainly in fashion, Girl Meets Dress has spotted that retail and consumer habits are changing significantly, both in terms of expectations but also in terms of value. The growth in rental is testament to that change. Luxury fashion rental is putting control in the hands of the consumer whereby women can now easily wear more trend led, time-sensitive fashions, while continuing to invest and buy only in those classic pieces which will stand the test of time. Among the many benefits of an outsourced wardrobe for your party dresses are: Trying all the designers you see in Vogue (There are too many to buy!) Saving money on buying dresses you invariably only wear once or twice, Experiment with the season's trends without being stuck with an out of date look, AND avoid being tagged on Facebook in the same outfits!
Working with research partner YouGov and Trends Forecaster, The Future Foundation, Zipcar's new report unsurprisingly lists cars top of the list of things that Brits would most consider hiring and sharing, and it's an area which we have been used to renting for decades now. But this is changing, and over half of the UK would not rule out hiring less traditional items, such as art, clothing and children's toys.
And the main reasons given for hiring, rather than buying? Not being able to afford to buy it (53%), cost per use (60%), depreciation in value (38%), ongoing maintenance costs (45%) and flexibility to upgrade or change models (29%). (All which actually apply to renting a designer dress!)
So the question is, which dress will you #lovesharing?
