RENT-THE-RUNWAY UNLIMITED: An Expensive Faux pas.

When we hear “Rent The Runway”, we conjure up visions of Gigi Hadid strutting down the catwalk in the latest Chanel Couture and being able to wear that same outfit so that you can be incredibly chic at the next party!   

Who wouldn’t enjoy having access to revolving runway pieces at a fraction of the cost? In this world where we do things “for the [Insta]gram”, Rent The Runway [RTR] appears to be the perfect resolve to living that gram lifestyle.

*Please note that prices are reflective from when the C&C Team trialed the plan and may not be reflective of current rates.

The C&C Fashion Team subscribed for the monthly RTR Unlimited plan with $80 off the 60 Day Trial.  We tried it for about 4 months.  We chose the most expensive plan as it appeared to provide the most flexibility when it came to swapping and returning the items.  RTR fell short of expectations after our experience. 

When that first bag of goodies arrived, we were blown away.  The attention to detail was next level.  RTR had carefully placed all 4 items into a chic black zipper bag.  When you open it, the clothes look like they were freshly packaged straight off the dry cleaners, covered in plastic, and ready to be worn.  Handbags are separately packaged in a dust cover bag with the RTR logo on it.  Inside the mesh pocket of the garment bag, they’ve included a return slip for your convenience.  When it’s ready to be returned, you just place everything in the garment bag, replace the mailing label with the provided return slip, zip it up, and drop it off at UPS.  RTR takes care of the dry cleaning after you’ve worn it.

It seems so seamless and so easy. 

Upon actual execution, we realized there were some hard limitations:

·       Unlimited… it is not.

·       Inventory mainly composed of lower tier fashion brands that fall under the category of Accessible Luxury and Premium Fashion and offer very few items from the Aspirational or Supreme labels which we correlate when hearing ‘runway’. 

RTR’s website states that under the unlimited plan they offer: “Rent unlimited pieces on rotation.”

This is quite misleading as you are only allowed to rent out a maximum of 4 items at one time and add additional items for an additional cost as marked on the website.  If you don’t want to spend anymore money, then you’ll have to return one or more of the items that you’ve already rented to make room on your 4 item roster.  This proves to be an inconvenience and a disappointment considering that we’ve chosen the “Unlimited” plan.  What isn’t made clear upfront is that the “unlimited” applies to the type of items that you’re renting and not the quantity of items; meaning you can rent either 4 handbags or 4 dresses or 4 accessories.  You can mix and match your 4 pieces to be a mix of dresses, handbags, or jewelry.  To add additional challenges, the website is absent a few additional links and makes it not so user friendly. 

Higher end designers like Gucci and Saint Laurent, which help to conjure up the familiar runway images are listed on their “Designers” list but only offer sunglasses and no other product.

One of the most challenging experiences on the consumer is when you’ve finally chosen the dress or the outfit you want to rent.  We set our sizes in the range of 2,4,6 and these sizes are almost always “unavailable”.  You spend a lot of your time searching through RTR’s inventory looking for the perfect outfit for that upcoming event and when you finally find the piece, it’s not even available.  Going thru RTR is like flipping through cable TV: So many channels offered and nothing to watch. On occasion, you might come across a show or movie you like but it’s less frequent.  We feel that for the monthly price we pay after the trial, there isn’t anything  of true useful quality available to us.  We can’t tell if it’s unavailable because it’s all rented out or if they even have it in stock afterall.  It allows itself to be suspect to whether or not these items are even in their warehouse or if the designer name was just placed on the website to bait customers.

You actually lose about 6 days of rental time during your month if you ship all 4 items back altogether. This is another inconvenience. You can’t rent anymore pieces until RTR has received your return.  The system is not set up to allow you to start renting once they’ve scanned your package at the delivery center (likely UPS).  If you’ve returned all 4 of your items at once, then you’re actually losing 1-3 days of renting time as you have to wait for RTR to receive your returns, process it into their systems before RTR website allows you to ‘add to cart’. Then you have to wait additional days for your new items to arrive (though it ships rather quickly, you do have to wait a day or 2).  It’s definitely not the most efficient system.  Another sub-limitation is that they only give you one garment bag with 1 return slip.  If you plan on placing your items on rotation one at a time, you’ll have to pay your own way to return that item or wait until the next garment bag arrives.  There’s definitely potential here but it would require lots of planning in advance on the customer’s end to get the most out of this membership and the extremely limiting part is that it’s contingent on availability of the items.  As the C&C Team found, it’s a lot of work to get clothes that we feel just ‘OK’ about, especially when the items we really want is likely “unavailable”.

 CANCELLATION

When you are ready to cancel your plan, beware that you must cancel your plan prior to your next billing cycle. Once your credit card has been [auto] charged, they’ve got your money and they are not going to give it back to you. They’re like the Verizon Wireless of Fashion. Our team cancelled our plan one day after our billing cycle renewal because the renewal date fell on a Sunday. We called the following Monday to see if they could reimburse us the charge. All items were returned in advanced and we received confirmation that RTR had received all items. RTR flat out stated they don’t do refunds. They will credit your account for future use or you can continue with your plan for another month since you’ve been forced to pay and then make sure to request the cancellation well before your billing cycle renews. Thanks Verizon Wireless, I mean RTR.

Here's where RTR would work: Temporary or 1 time use

*If you’re a social media influencer who does #OOTD and need to switch it up constantly

*If you have an event to go to and have time to plan way ahead for 1 or 2 looks.

*Perfect options for weddings, galas, other special events

Here’s where RTR doesn’t work: Daily outfit planning

If you work in an office and need work clothes every week that’s not a gown or night out dress.  Sure, you could mix and match but if you only had time to make 1 stop before going into your office, do you stop for coffee or a UPS Dropoff?  There’s not enough inventory available or fast turnaround time for this to make sense for someone who is looking to use this for everyday outfit rotations.  4 items is not enough to last someone for one full work week, especially if you are also looking to rent accessories.  It’s definitely not worth the cost of the membership.

Pro:

RTR’s contribution to this shared economy helps to cut down on textile wastes but it can also be a big financial investment for some. 

The C&C Fashion Team believe that RTR has a great concept that requires a bit more improvement and time to become a more sophisticated system and we have no doubt that it can be fully successfully in what it sets out to accomplish.  But for now, we’d recommend using the service for that once in a while event.  Make sure to plan ahead so that you don’t end up picking an item that’s not available!

Happy strutting!

C&C Fashion Team