Rent your holiday party dress with RentTheRunway.com

Ahh, the holidays are around the corner. Don’t you just love the season for work parties, charity events and the like?

Well, recessionista alert: Instead of buying a bunch of different dresses to wear to the various parties you’ve got to attend during the holidays, perhaps you should consider RENTING your dress.

Hmm.

Rent The Runway is a New York based company that allows you to choose from a list of designer dresses to rent. They even throw in a backup size, and voila! You’re all set with a fresh look for another holiday party with the same old folks.

According to Springwise.com, rental costs are around 10 percent of a garment’s retail price, and range from $50 to $200. Customers can rent for four or eight days, after which they return the dress in the USPS return envelope that RTR provides. The extra size—which RTR provides at no extra cost—must be returned unworn.

During these economic times, this is a great way to freshen up your look for those fancy holiday parties you’ve got to make an appearance at, without having to come out of pocket for a dress that you’ll probably only wear once or twice.

The only problem I see? When I tried to sign up on their Web site, I got this message:

Hmmm….

This article appears in Nov 3-9, 2009.