Let’s keep this light. I’m enjoying renting clothes. The necklace is from an accessories exchange party I went to a few weeks ago where you bring all the random accessories you have and you trade. You can bring as much or as little as you like and there is no rule for equal exchange. So I got a lot of necklaces to experiment with.
So there is some interest in this clothing rental stuff. It’s completely frivolous and is what I consider “a waste of money” and I feel somewhat guilty of indulging in this, but now it’s been almost a year I’ve done it and I really love it and it’s taught me a lot about how I enjoy fashion. It’s Rent the Runway – I pay about $150 a month for 10 pieces of clothing, 5 at a time, 2 shipments. Shipping and cleaning is all included. If you get a little snag or stain, you don’t get charged for them. They are surprisingly good at guessing which size fits you and you can read the reviews from other renters to figure it out a little more for yourself.
What I’ve learned is that I like different clothes all the time. Rental is perfect for me because I wear clothes for two, three or five times over half a month and then I never wear them again. You can buy stuff you like at a discount and I did that a few times, but then I realized I can’t buy everything I like, because 1. it’s expensive even at a discount and 2. my closet will burst.
So the advice I’d been trying to follow my entire life is to by “timeless” or “classic” pieces of clothing – supposed to be high quality and last a long time is/was basically crap for my personality. I could never do this because I never wanted to spend more than $50 for a piece of clothing and then, if you do, you have a whole lot of plain black pants, grey sweaters and brown shoes and a sturdy leather bag. Which I did like and is totally fine, but it turns out, I like completely funky pieces of clothing, all in bright colors that don’t match anything.
I actually also found out that I don’t mind being a little bit more dressed up than anyone else. I like it when people enjoy the outfits I wear which they do all the time and I thought I didn’t want to stand out or be noticed and, actually, it’s nice to stand out and be noticed – I usually fess up that I rent my clothing. It’s a lot of FUN. Like so much more fun than I thought it would be. This is a very surprising thing that I found out about me that I would have never known. Do I care about fashion? I never did, but now I do. I watch youtube videos about fashion and how to dress. SO STRANGE. (the #1 tip I have is monochromatic dressing. Dress in all one color from head to toe, shoes and accessories included. Doesn’t matter if they exactly match, just dress in all blues or all yellows or all reds or all whatever – try to mix textures or materials or shape, but the same color. You’ll look fantastic. #2 tip is silhouette – mix them – tight pants, billowy top or the other way around, baggy pants and form fitting top). For a long, long time (and the pandemic did not help), I was very content to wear my pajamas to the grocery store. And when I’m stressed out, I’ll still go back to wearing PJs all day. Even though comfort is my #1 goal and even if all the clothes I rent have elastic waistbands and/or fit perfectly, nothing, absolutely nothing is as comfy as a set of sweatpants and a sweatshirt over a beloved soft T shirt & no bra.