I was recently lucky enough to get a voucher for a free month of Rent The Runway Unlimited, which lets you rent four pieces of clothing at a time. I used Rent The Runway once before; I rented a jumpsuit for a wedding I attended. I have to say, it’s pretty fun to rent clothes, especially brands that I wouldn’t be able to afford to buy at full price. (pssst. If you want to try RTR for yourself here is a $30 off code.) So a month’s worth of rentals was appealing, even though I was apprehensive about whether or not the service would be worth it. You can rent up to four items at a time including jewelry and accessories. When you get tired of wearing them you can send the items back and RTR sends you new ones.
Overall I was pleased with my RTR Unlimited experience. (Hey, it was free.) Once I was done with wearing my four items I just put them back in the garment bag they came in and dropped them off at a UPS store, which wasn’t a big deal since I live within a 10 minute drive of one. Still, I wondered how environmentally friendly it was for me to drive to UPS, then have these items shipped, then dry cleaned for the next customer. That’s not to mention the plastic bags that each of the items were wrapped in.
So what do you do if you enjoy fashion but want to minimize your environmental impact? Elizabeth Cline, author of two books on fast fashion and conscious clothing consumption, recently addressed this issue for Elle Magazine. While Cline pointed out all the things I said above about dry cleaning and shipping in her article, she did note that renting is a step in the right direction because it doesn’t contribute to, and potentially lessens, overproduction of clothing.
That said, consider the following:
“But rentable fashion contains one more environmental risk: that it will increase our appetite for clothes. Fashion rental platforms that own the clothes in circulation differ from true sharing economy platforms like, say, Airbnb or closet-swapping appTulerie, where users own the inventory. According to Steven Curtis, a researcher at Sweden’s Lund University, companies like Rent the Runway are better described as access-based consumption platforms. This isn’t just petty semantics: ‘Research suggests that access-based consumption can induce more consumption as consumers have access to a greater selection of goods at a reduced price,” says Curtis. It’s called “share-washing.’ Uber, for example, advertised itself as a way to share rides and curb car ownership; instead, it has been proven to discourage walking, bicycling, and public transportation use.”
Sigh. So what do we do? There isn’t an easy solution. One step I’ve taken to avoid the temptation of buying things I don’t need is to unfollow brand and store accounts on social media. I’m already inundated with ads for clothing companies on Instagram and Facebook, so lowering my risk of temptation is just one way to stop the mindless scrolling and purchasing of clothes. I also deleted all shopping apps from my phone and I abide by this mental shopping list I created for myself. I try to trade in my clothes at places like Buffalo Exchange, Swap Boutique, and ThredUp so I can spend store credit, not cash, on my clothes. The best thing we can do is rewire ourselves to enjoy what we have and not succumb to buying stuff and getting tired of it when that dopamine hit wears off.