CASE STUDY 2: Girl Meets Dress

An example of sharing economy and battling the “one-time” use of clothes, especially those for evening wear and party wear, are clothes renting spaces that are being created. Most of them are operating on a regional or national level through online spaces, with some organising “pop-up shops”. A limited area of operation ensures low delivery costs and an environmental impact.

One of these rental spaces is “Girl Meets Dress“, operating in the UK. Their focus is formal wear for women in categories ranging from personal events like weddings or christenings to work events and formal parties. Girl Meets Dress has two renting systems, pay as you go – where you can rent dresses for 2 or 7 nights – or a membership system in which you get 3 dresses on rotation for a month, depending on personal needs.

Before the event you can choose up to 3 dresses that will be delivered to you, chose one to wear to a party, and after renting period is over send back all outfits using the same box you got them in.

Since you aren’t buying the clothes themselves and after each “temporary owner” they are returned, cleaned and put back again “on stock” there are economic and environmental advantages of this model:

• diminishing the impact: by using clothes multiple times, individually they have a lesser impact on the environment, which is especially important with evening and party wear, where more fabric and trims are used, making it more “expensive” in CO2 emissions
• reducing production: renting clothes reduces the further need of producing more clothes to satisfy “one-time outfits”; it’s the quickest and easiest solution to bridge the gap between the need of having new outfits for every occasion and saving the planet.
• cutting costs: since you are renting the dress for a short time, the costs are much lower than buying it, making designer dresses affordable to more consumers.