Rent The Runway debuts bridal
Rent The Runway, a website that allows shoppers to “rent” a designer dress for a fraction of the retail cost, is launching a bridal section today.
Although women don’t tend to rent their wedding or bridesmaid dresses, it does bring up an exciting option: What if the price tag didn’t matter?
Most dresses will cost only about 10 to 20 percent of the retail price. For example, an $800 bridesmaid dress will run you approximately $100. If that’s the case, that’s opening doors for many bridal parties that would rather look fabulous on a budget than buy something they can keep in their closet until the end of time. No more orange chiffon bridesmaid dresses? Say it isn’t so.
Jennifer Hyman, CEO of Rent The Runway, admitted that she’s never liked anything she’s been forced to wear in a wedding.
“The bridesmaid dress is the most dreaded purchase in the fashion world,” Hyman told Forbes. “This is about saving women money, and saving women from ugly.”
The site has all the bases covered, even jewelry. For an additional $25, Rent The Runway will solve your accessory issues.
There still one big component, however, that’s missing: the fitting. Rent The Runway says all bridal will include a one-day fitting, and customers can keep the dress for up to eight days.
Jennifer Hyman and Jennifer Carter Fleiss, two Harvard grads, launched Rent The Runway in November 2009. By July of last year, they moved their Web start-up into a 9,000-square-foot space in New York City’s stylish TriBeca neighborhood. In their first week on the Web, Rent The Runway signed up 20,000 members, and, since their inception, they’ve rented out more than 20,000 gowns.
For more information, visit their website at renttherunway.com.
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