Fashion for hire
The season of proms, garden parties and weddings is upon us and that means the pressure to land the perfect dress — with the right style, fit and price — can be as exhausting as strutting in five-inch stilettos.
If you do find a winner, the question is: Will you ever wear it again or will the frock be relegated to the back of the closet with the other castoffs?
This stress was the impetus for Kristy Wieber and Lisa Delorme to launch Rent frock Repeat (Rentfrockrepeat.com), an online designer dress rental company similar to a tuxedo rental shop for men, only with much more variety.
“We were in a situation we find our customers in,” Wieber says. “We had to go to a wedding and we had been complaining that we didn’t want to spend another few hundred dollars on a dress that was just going to sit in our closet. And it was a wedding where we knew all the people, so we couldn’t really wear something that we had already worn.”
Wieber and Delorme met while working at the Art In- stitute of Toronto. They became fast friends and knew they wanted to start their own venture together.
They launched Rent frock Repeat last May, and now have more than 12,000 members and growing.
To rent, you must sign up for a free membership; then you log on, click “rent frocks” and browse dresses by availability, style, colour, designer and body shape. Once you’ve found a dress, select your preferred size and backup size — they send a second dress to ensure proper fit. Provide shipping details and the date by which you need the dress. They suggest the dresses arrive two days before your event to allow enough time to co-ordinate accessories.
To return the dresses, place them in the prepaid return envelope and drop in the mail.
A dress can retail for $895, but rent for $75 for four days; or $120 for eight days. A $3,500 silk gown can be rented for $350 for four days. There’s also an option to rent for eight days or longer.