If you grew up with sisters, you know firsthand the phenomenon I like to call, "The disappearing sweater." Mostly, I was on the perpetrating end of this, as everything in my sister's closet always looked a thousand times better than what I had in my own. I was enthralled with her stuff.
HOW….. COOL….. WERE……. HER…. CLOTHES!
Years later, I did a short stint working in a dry cleaning shop (I would not recommend this job to anyone!) and I quickly developed favorite customers. The basis for my favoritism was my admiration of their personal style. I was young and practically penniless. There was no chance that I could afford to purchase any of the stylish and well tailored fashions that were paraded endlessly before me.
How times have changed, why sink all that money into building and maintaining a stylish wardrobe when you can borrow it from someone else? What?! Yes! Now there's an app for that too!
—-"Collaborative consumption marketplaces have taken off in recent years to let people share many of the big ticket items in their lives: houses, apartments, cars. A new startup called Style Lendis gunning to be the go-to site for sharing the big ticket items that are sitting in women’s closets.
Essentially an Airbnb for high-end dresses and accessories, Style Lend is a peer-to-peer marketplace where women can list and rent items for a fraction of their original retail cost. Most women can relate to having at least a couple items in their closets that cost a lot of money, but get very little wear: That one special occasion dress, or designer handbag. These kinds of items stick around because they aren’t quite candidates for consignment. She loves them and wants to keep them, but the truth is that they stay in the closet 95% of the time."—
Why haven't we thought of this before? What a brilliant idea to benefit everyone involved. If you loan the clothes, you get a bit of your purchase price back. The more often you loan the item, the more money you can make and thus buy more clothes! Now paying top dollar for well made quality clothing really is an investment. If you do it well, your high end "splurge" could end up paying for itself!
