Rent A Dress AU

Summer is upon us, but you are still strapped for cash and can’t afford that dress you love? Fear no more explains Phoebe Rothfield.

You can rent an apartment, you can rent movies, you can rent tuxedos, but why has it taken so long for something for women to open up into the market? Women are willing to spend up to $800 on a dress that they will wear once and throw to the back of their cupboard. At least that’s what I used to do before I came across an up-and-coming business that changed the way I would handle my worn clothes forever. Everyone, meet Rent A Dress AU; Rent A Dress AU meet everyone.

Larissa Walsh, a nineteen year-old Commerce student from Melbourne University, is the mastermind behind the new craze to hit Melbourne that already has close to 3,000 followers on Instragram and continues to grow each day.

“I first started Rent A Dress mainly for my own purpose of renting out my dresses and making some quick cash. I started to think about how much money I had been spending on dresses I would wear once, and put away in my closet, never to be worn again, and this thought made me feel really guilty. I created a small Instagram page with mainly my dresses and a few of my close friends. It suddenly took off and girls everywhere were asking me to advertise their items, so I established a Facebook page.”

The whole concept behind the page is to be able to wear something that you love but that you cannot afford at retail price. You contact the girl who has advertised her dress, top, skirt or set and organise a time and date to rent the outfit. Overall you usually pay just a fraction of the original price and still have money saved to get a spray tan, a mani-pedi and maybe your hair blow-waved for that big event.

“What I love about Rent A Dress AU is that it is quite different from other rentals sites. It isn’t one company who owns a variety of outfit. It’s an entire collection of girls renting out their dresses to one another in a variety of sizes. I really love this because it not only allows girls to save money by renting instead of buying, but it also allows them to earn back some of that money they spent on buying it in the first place.”

Larissa holds high hopes for the company with a website already under construction and the hope to provide dresses and outfits to girls who may not be able to afford these luxuries some of us take for granted. “Something I am really looking forward to working on is establishing a network where we can provide young girls, who are underprivileged or do not have the opportunity to buy a beautiful outfits for a special occasion such as their high-school formal. This is something we will strive to achieve in the future.”

You can find Rent A Dress AU on Facebook at facebook.com/rentadressau or on Instagram at @rentadressau