IN THE NEWS: Girl Meets Dress in Forbes.
Thanks to Cally Russell who wrote about the rise of clothing subscription services for Forbes this week.

We have seen an amazing response to our ‘Infinite’ subscription hire option. Which for £99 a month, enables members to borrow unlimited dresses, 3 at a time, all month!

Here is the article in full below and the link to click and read it on the Forbes website:

“Uber and AIRBNB have reshaped their respective industries in the UK through their use of sharing and have driven the explosion we’ve seen in the sharing economy. For the majority of us, until very recently, the thought of staying in someone’s spare room instead of a hotel whilst on holiday, or getting into a strangers car was an alien concept and not something we would consider but today many of us do both without a second thought.

When it comes to clothes, the idea of wearing something owned by someone else is a line many of us still won’t cross but with an explosion in options, 2019 might be the year this all changes.

Gen Y has been at the forefront of the growth in re-sale and second-hand clothing apps such as Depop over the past couple of years but it’s clothing subscription models that might finally encourage the mainstream retail market to embrace the sharing economy in regards to clothing in the UK.

The idea of renting clothes has caught on in a big way in the US with Rent The Runway raising $210m since 2009 enabling female consumers to rent up to 4 pieces at a time for $159 a month whereas here in the UK, the market is still developing, despite services such as Girl Meets Dress having been around for the same length of time.

New entrants such as WearTheWalk and FrontRow are betting on this changing in 2019 and are focusing on very specific customer groups to begin challenging Girl Meets Dress and securing UK market share before Rent The Runway makes an inevitable push into the UK market.

FrontRow focuses on renting high-end designer pieces for short periods of time, for example, a pair of Lambskin Chanel gloves for 5 days will cost you £150 if they’re being delivered in Central London. This process is clearly designed to appeal to the Instagram generation and the desire to be seen in the latest trends.

WearTheWalk, on the other hand, is more in line with the Rent The Runway model, with it’s monthly subscription offering it gives members access to a number of pieces from emerging designers throughout the month, having 5 pieces at any one time costs £120 a month. This approach focusing on the volume of products is clearly designed to capture the active young professional market.

Both of these companies and their respective focus is underpinned on the emergence of a new type of consumer – the sustainably focused millennial who has now been conditioned by other sharing services to value access over ownership – and believe this evolution of consumer behaviors will ultimately take their offerings mainstream.

‘Amongst millennials, we are seeing an emphasis on “access over ownership”, which is what makes the market conditions so ripe for a rental model. Secondly, and most importantly is the sustainable fashion movement, which has gained significant momentum over the past year and now dictates one of the primary buying motivation of Gen Y and millennials.’ Outlines the CEO and Founder of WearTheWalk, Zoe Partridge.

‘The sharing economy facilitates the growth of smaller brands through the access it provides to consumers, it’s our belief that the sharing economy democratizes a once heavily elitist industry and enables the everyday girl, and the next generation of luxury consumers to consume brands that were once the preserve of the catwalks, photo shoots and those with big enough bank balances.’

She also highlights that despite the uncertainty facing the economy their customer research tells them that 73% of millennials are willing to pay more fashion with a sustainability slant to it.

One barrier that all clothing rental companies need to overcome though is the idea that you’re wearing a piece of clothing that has been worn by others before you, the idea of cleanliness in this sector is clearly a higher priority than with ordering a taxi.

With this in mind, it’s no surprise that such companies are creating promotional videos to show behind the scenes of their clothing rental businesses, especially highlighting how the clothes are cleaned to the highest of standards. The most recent example of this being the video campaign undertaken in China by YCloset with a leading Chinese influencer Jiang Chacha. The video ends with her being offered a glass of water to drink from one of the steaming machines used, clearly implying the cleanliness of the whole process.

The increased spending power of Gen Y and Millennials in the retail market and the desire for experience over ownership mean that the stars may just have aligned for the clothing rental market to move mainstream in 2019 in the UK, although it might need a bigger retail name to enter the space to really help shape consumer conscience around the trend and overcome the mental challenges still clearly facing the emerging sector.”

At Girl Meets Dress, our aim has always been to build you a Closetless Future — More than ever now, in this world, you don’t need a physical closet to house hundreds of items you don’t wear most of the time, and most items you’ve worn once.
Renting makes members more environmentally-responsible. Cutting down on fast fashion, an closing the loop on over consumption!
This is just at the beginning and we can’t wait to tell you what’s next. Thank you to all our customers – we can’t do it without you!

Women regularly wear only 20% of their closets, so by hiring your dresses, with Girl Meets Dress you can access a dream closet in ‘the cloud’ and return them when they’re no longer needed.

Our hire fans get addicted to our ‘INFINITE’ subscription service and 70% report spending less money on clothing. Members are wearing rented outfits all month, for both evening occations; dinners / drinks / dates etc and also work and casual weekend activities.

With GMD INFINITE, women can refresh their wardrobe on a monthly basis, renting dresses they can keep for a few weeks and wear to 1 event or 5! At £99/month, we believe that renting the latest dresses is environmentally-sustainable alternative to the wasteful, throwaway culture which has grown tremendously over the past 20 years.

Our customers don’t have to become a member. We still have the PAY AS YOU GO hire option for all items. Simply order the dresses you want, for your individual event dates. Perfect for the special occasions in your life – weddings, dinners, black tie festive events. Prom time, University balls and Weddings! Hire dresses and reserve a few to try on for tonight or a few months from now. FREE DELIVERY AND RETURN, AND FULL REFUNDS FOR ANYTHING YOU DON’T WEAR.

This morning we were reading an article mentioning dress rental Girl Meets Dress in the context of how the fashion industry is evolving in order to decrease fast fashion. The article is below by Barney Cotton on BUSINESS LEADER https://www.businessleader.co.uk/hm-and-zara-the-sustainable-fashion-brands-killing-the-environment/56166/

“H&M AND ZARA, THE ‘SUSTAINABLE’ FASHION BRANDS KILLING THE ENVIRONMENT

H&M and Zara are the two largest fashion retailers in the world, contributing enormously to the fashion industry being worth $2.4tn. Both launched sustainable and ethical clothing collections, but do they really care for the environment or are they simply contributing to the monsters in our closets?

The fashion industry is the second largest polluter in the world, coming second to the oil sector. 20% of industrial water pollution stems from textile development and this booming industry emits 1.2 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year.

These appalling consequences of the lucrative fashion industry are only going to increase as consumers continue to buy cheap clothes. By 2050, it is estimated that clothing production will account for 25% of the world’s carbon budget. That’s more than road transport and agriculture.

The problem isn’t what’s available to buy, it’s the throwaway culture of continuously buying new garments.

So, what’s the cause? Fast fashion.

WHAT IS FAST FASHION?
Fast fashion is the mass-production of cheap clothes, a trend that has exacerbated with the influx of retailers, like H&M and Zara, offering never-ending seasons of new clothes. It amounts to over 80 billion garments being sold to customers annually.

The fast fashion model has spiraled into a marketer’s dream. Consumer purchase behaviours are driven by short-term pleasure. We show off our wealth, style and personality but once this temporary fulfilment is over, it’s a vicious cycle to continuously satisfy our rational materialistic values, becoming a desire not a necessity.

With continuous targeted advertisements, sales and discounts, it’s hard to resist.

H&M – HYPOCRITES OR ADVOCATES FOR SUSTAINABLE FASHION?
H&M imply they’re leading the industry towards a sustainability wave. But is this just a publicity stunt to increase revenue or do they really care?

H&M’s Conscious collection is ethically sourced and uses recycled and organic materials for ladies, men’s and kids’ fashion. With clothes as cheap as £5, is this just promoting our short-term habits of single-use clothing? This sustainable range accounts for only 5% of their overall products, so how conscious are they of our planet?

Their recycling initiative offers customers vouchers for recycling old clothing but this only influences further consumptions, relying on the fast fashion model.

However, H&M can be praised for taking a step in the right direction beginning with their sustainable clothes and raising awareness of the worrying side effects of our shopping addictions.

IS ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY FASHION NEXT SEASON’S TREND FOR ZARA?
Inditex Group, the owner of Zara, are the largest fashion company in the world, meaning they have an enormous potential to reduce our environmental impacts. They’ve been ranked as the most sustainable fashion company by Dow Jones Sustainability Index, so what are they doing?

Zara aim to stop sending all unused textiles to landfills by 2020. Their goal is to develop an efficient life cycle for their clothes, meaning less textile landfill waste. They’ve begun taking steps by reusing unused textiles.

Like H&M Conscious, Zara have started using recycled materials and ecologically grown cotton through the Zara Join Life range, a trendy and reasonably priced collection which has significantly grown in popularity since launching in 2016.

THE RETAIL SUPPLY CHAIN’S ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
Fashion isn’t always pretty – every step of the fashion supply chain has horrendous statistics. For each tonne of dyed fabric, 200 tonnes of water is needed. With factories in countries such as India, Bangladesh and China churning out thousands of items per minute, these effects are aggravated to an alarming level of 1.5 trillion litres of water used annually.

The shocking costs to our environment can be seen by the complete loss of the Aral Sea, where cotton production has converted a sea into a desert.

The problem doesn’t stop after clothing has been produced. A report by the UN found 90% of chemically infused wastewater in developing countries is released into local rivers and is used by locals daily.

Once we’re bored of our clothes what happens? In the UK alone, we throw away 300,000 tonnes of clothing a year to landfills. Synthetic fibres, like polyester, are used in 72% of modern clothing and they’re non-biodegradable, meaning each garment can take up to 200 years to decompose.

THE FUTURE OF THE FASHION INDUSTRY
How can we move on from the fast fashion model without compromising the profits of brands who are already facing difficulties with high street retailing?

It’s a commercial challenge, but organisations like Greenpeace and The True Cost, a Netflix documentary, are raising awareness amongst shoppers. If consumer desires evolve, the industry will have to respond, but it won’t be a quick process.

Clothing donations to charities have increased by 2.3% annually, suggesting a step towards a longer life-cycle for our clothes.

Suit hire is already a norm for men’s formalwear, and rental clothing companies such as Girl Meets Dress, are now offering short-term access to bespoke gowns and designer gear at low costs.

The rental model aims to reduce the amount of clothing we buy and avoids the ‘not wanting to be seen in the same outfit twice’ crisis. Is sharing caring? Girl Meets Dress believe their service will satisfy our insatiable appetite for fashion but how can it compete with the likes of Boohoo and ASOS offering next-day delivery to outright buy cheap clothes.

Who’s going to take responsibility? Is it up to retailers, factories, consumers or the government to address the facts and begin a new fashion trend.”

Every day we get customers enquiring about plus Size Prom Dresses UK, Big Size Dresses
and cheap plus size prom dresses – so we want to ensure that we have a collection online that is specially designed for ladies who want to buy large prom dresses.
Get in touch with us if you would like our stylists to email you a list of options for your event date: customersupport@girlmeetsdress.com

Hire plus-size dresses in a variety of colours and styles | why don’t you Rent the Runway for your next event?
See the UK dresses to hire here >
Plus Size Evening Dresses for special occasions this season.
Shop beautiful plus size evening dresses online at Girl Meets Dress | Free Delivery & Returns.
We stock women’s plus size Dresses | Black Friday Pre-Sale 2018‎