Have you ever opened your closet and said to yourself, “There’s nothing here I want to wear”? The popular clothing store Urban Outfitters has the answer for this classic dilemma.
Hi again everyone, this is Jeff and you’re listening to Plain English. Your recipe for success. It’s great to have you with us once again on this Monday edition of Plain English. JR is the producer and this is Episode 160. That means you can find a full interactive transcript of this episode at PlainEnglish.com/160.
Coming up on today’s episode: Urban Outfitters wants to make your closet the next frontier in the sharing economy. And why not? We subscribe to Spotify for music, Netflix for TV shows; some people take Uber instead of owning a car. Why not refresh your wardrobe with some new pieces every month, and send them back when you’re done? That’s the idea behind a new service from Urban Outfitters, and it’s not as far-fetched as it might sound. The expression we’ll review later today is to have your work cut out for you. And it’s Monday, so we’ll have a quote of the week toward the end of the episode.
I just got back from vacation—I was in Florida and it was just the rest I need! I spent a lot of time resting, relaxing, and reading some good books. But I also put some significant time into planning for the future of Plain English and I can tell you we have some great things in the works. I’ll share more about those plans in the future, but the best way to make sure you don’t miss anything is to be part of our e-mail community. And you can join that by visiting PlainEnglish.com/mail .
Keep your wardrobe fresh with clothing rentals
Here’s a question for you: How many times have you opened your closet or your dresser drawers and said to yourself, “I don’t have anything I want to wear.” Ladies? Guys? You can admit it, even if it’s just to yourself. Or how about this: How many times have you bought something that looked good, and felt good the first couple of times, but after only those first few times wearing it, that shirt or jacket makes its way to the back of your closet and doesn’t seem to come out again? Has that ever happened?
If so, you might be interested in a new concept in fashion: clothing rentals. If you are of a certain age, such as my age, you may remember renting a tuxedo or a dress for a formal dance when you were in high school or college. The prom, it’s called here in the US: that’s the big end-of-the-year dance for high school kids. We would go down to the one or two stores in our town, get measured, somehow accept an ill-fitting, boring-looking, uncomfortable tuxedo and too-tight shoes, and then try not to spill our drinks on it during the dance. Then we’d return it and they’d rent it out to some other hormonal teenager the next week.
If that’s your experience with clothing rentals, then some companies, including Urban Outfitters, are dead set on changing your mind. Instead of musty old, ill-fitting tuxedos and dresses, they want you to think variety. They want you to think designer fashion. They want you to think convenience, the freedom to experiment, looking good, feeling good in your clothes, never being bored with your wardrobe.
These companies believe your closet is the next frontier of the sharing economy. We pay monthly for unlimited music on Spotify and TV shows on Netflix, so why shouldn’t our wardrobes be as exciting and filled with variety as our playlists?
The latest company to join this market is Urban Outfitters. They announced a new venture called Nuuly. N-U-U-L-Y; it’s spelled oddly, but it’s pronounced Nuuly. It will debut in the United States and cost $88 per month. With that subscription, you’ll get to borrow six items from Urban Outfitters and its other brands, like Anthropologie and Free People. It might seem strange for a store, which typically wants to sell you clothes, to be renting them to you instead. But as one of the company executives said, “Purchases make sense for things you know you’re going to use often; rental makes sense for things you would like to try.”
After you return the items, Urban Outfitters will wash them and inspect them before sending them out to another customer. That, by the way, is one of the biggest reservations that consumers have about clothing rental: the idea of putting on clothes that another person—heck, several other people—have worn before you. Companies know they’ve got their work cut out for them if they want to convince consumers to wear clothes that others have worn. That’s why the company YCloset, a startup in Beijing, actually made a promotional video advertising its massive, industrial-scale laundry operation. They highlighted the huge washing machines, steam cleaners, and even microscopes that are part of the cleaning process.
One of the advantages of clothing rental is the reduction in the environmental impact of buying new clothes. Making clothing takes a lot of natural resources, and most pieces of clothing just sit in our closets most of the time. If we could get more uses out of each piece of clothing, then we could all collectively wear higher-quality pieces, buy less, and use fewer natural resources.
I think consumers, whatever their reservations, are catching on, either for the environmental benefits, cost savings, or just the variety and convenience. Excluding formalwear and costumes, clothing rental in the United States is worth about $1 billion per year, is expected to more than double in the coming years. There are some interesting industry pioneers. A company called Rent the Runway was started in 2009 and focuses on providing fashionable clothing to women. The service has attracted 11 million members, who can either rent designer pieces one-by-one, or sign up for a subscription that lets them borrow four items at a time. This is especially useful for women in business. Women feel more pressure than men to have a refreshed, varied business wardrobe, so they have taken to services like Rent the Runway to keep their wardrobes fresh. Another company in the US is called Le Tote, and a service in the UK is called Girl Meets Dress. Part of the appeal is that it lets you spend a relatively small amount of your budget on higher-end items, without any chance of buyer’s remorse. And now, as you’ve heard, mainstream fashion brands are pushing into the clothing rental market. In addition to Urban Outfitters, the clothing brands Express and American Eagle are both getting into the game.
Rent the Runway recently announced it’s expanding into high-end kids’ clothing—that makes sense because kids grow out of stuff so quickly. They’re also partnering with furniture store West Elm to rent out accent pillows and blankets and such. Clothing, I can understand, but accent pillows? That might belong on the list of silly American things JR can talk your ear off about.
By the way, who knew microscopes were part of doing laundry? I don’t even separate colors from whites, and YCloset is using microscopes. When I told JR about Urban Outfitters, he had the typical reaction. I explained how it would work and he was amazed. He likes Urban Outfitters; he’s got some things from there. He said he wanted to sign up for this. Then when I told him they wash everything before sending it out again, he said, “Wait, it’s not new clothing?” I said, JR, it can’t all be new—in what way would that be renting? That’s when he wrote back to me, “Good luck writing the episode” and turned his attention to a baseball game. So, Urban Outfitters, if you’re listening: these are the kinds of reservations you’ll have to overcome.
I wanted to say a quick hi to Allan from Belo Horizonte and German from Chile. They are among the listeners who responded to me on WhatsApp about the zero-waste lifestyle episode we did. German sent me a picture of how he reduces his waste: he packages all the plastic waste he produces inside a water bottle, so it all takes up less space and is easier to recycle. Allan heard me talk about toothpaste in the episode, and he in fact did a class project where he re-designed toothpaste bottles so that the tube is the whole package. You know how when you buy tube of toothpaste, it comes in a box? Allan’s design eliminates the box entirely, and most of the tube is from recyclable materials. I thought that was a fantastic idea and I loved seeing his designs for it.
One more quick note from a listener—Javier from Mexico tells me that Didi is in Mexico now. That’s the China-based ridesharing company and Javier says they are in Aguascalientes as their first market in Mexico.
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