Being Geek Chic is a blog about one woman navigating the male-dominated industries of production and tech. It's written by Elizabeth Giorgi, Founder, CEO and Director of Mighteor - one of the world's first internet video production companies. Learn more about Mighteor here.
I only do laundry once every 60 to 90 days. For some people, that may seem totally insane. Maybe even gross. Quite honestly, I feel a little embarrassed that I know this about myself. But ever since I started my business, my life has become all about efficiency and reducing the amount of shit I do in my life that is totally and completely time consuming for no good reason at all. Laundry and dry cleaning was one of those things.
It all started when I went to go pick up my “go-to” suit jackets and sheath dress from the dry cleaner and the bill was $89. For three damn items. In case you didn’t know this already: there is a lady-penalty at the dry cleaner. A men’s shirt will get the steam and press for anywhere between $3.99 to $9.99. My silk shirts? The absolutely absurd price of $19.99. It’s the opposite of economical. And it just caused me a lot of stress always trying to figure out when I was gonna pick up my wardrobe.
And then I discovered this big secret: what if I didn’t even need to own nice clothes? Besides the basics, of course. What if I could avoid understanding trends and just let someone else do that for me?
Well now that is exactly what I do. I rent roughly 75% of my work week wardrobe and it’s awesome. No laundry. No dry cleaning. No unexpected dry cleaning bills. And no worrying about what to wear. New clothes just show up at my front door. Then, after I wear them, I send them back. I don’t have to wash them. I don’t have to steam them. I just wear and return.
This is how I do it:
From Monday - Wednesday, I wear my Rent the Runway Unlimited items. These tend to be my most busy “meeting” days, so it’s a lot of high end Diane Von Furstenberg dresses and Vince and Theory jackets and blazers. These things going extremely well with my existing accessories, so it’s super simple to just throw on a DVF sheath dress with a pair of heels and nice earrings and that’s that.
Then, on Thursday morning, the UPS guy picks up my RTR items and I pick my items on Friday for the next week. The nice thing about RTR is that you don’t have to send everything back at once, so you can hold onto that romper that makes you feel like a badass and send back the other items and just get two more items that week.
For Thursday and Friday (and the occasional Monday when UPS fails to deliver on time) I wear the items from my Le Tote. Le Tote is a funny thing. It allows you to rent the whole gamut of wardrobe items from gym attire to dressy dresses. Because you get five items at a time, I tend to be a little more adventurous with my Le Tote and have even bought one of the sweaters I had in one of my first Totes. The types of items I generally get from Le Tote are things like a sassy French Connection sweater or a Free People blouse. They tend to be my Friday items, when I’m not as likely to have a bunch of meetings but still want to look good just in case something does come up.
Le Tote does require you to send everything back at once, so I do have to plan a little better and there have been a few times when I did send something back without wearing it because the fit was bizarre or I just didn’t like the item on me. But I figure, in the big picture, it’s not a big deal.
The other really unexpected bonus of this system is how much simpler traveling for work has become. These days, I pack my LeTote and RTR items on every trip I go on, wear them for the work excursion, and then have my hotel ship the items back for me. I go home with a super light bag, which means I usually just fold it up into my laptop purse, and within a few days of being home, a new wardrobe is on the way.
What does this cost me? Altogether, I spend $200 per month on these two services combined. I don’t shop anymore. I do less laundry. And I’ve eradicated my twice monthly dry cleaning bill. I am pretty confident when I look at the numbers, I’m saving money.
Of course, most of my friends are baffled by this. But here’s the thing: there are SO many things I have spent a hundred bucks or more on in my closet that I’ve worn once and then I felt tremendously guilty forever because I never wore it again. You know what items most commonly suffer that ending? Yeah, they are the things that are colors. The blue dresses. And green skirts. And that one pink blazer I bought because I was losing my freaking mind. And while I don’t think this is for everyone, I do think it’s for people who like to dress up and want to look chic and polished for their job, but just don’t have the capacity to actually pull it off.
To put it in concrete terms, these are the things I most commonly rent: Really bold patterned shirts and rompers, sheath dresses in all kinds of colors, special event dresses for parties, networking events and big deal sort of activities, blazers and skirts.
And these are things that I don’t rent: Bras and underwear, accessories and jeans or my black skinnies. Socks, obviously. Shoes or footwear. Also, my purses usually last the whole year or two, so those I skip too.
The last, and perhaps, the most emotional reason why I just can’t imagine stopping this lifestyle switch any time soon is because fashion is so, so wasteful. When I think about how many crappy items I have purchased from Forever 21 and H&M over the years, only to donate those items one season later, it makes my stomach hurt. While wasting money sucks, ultimately, it’s the fact that most of that clothing winds up in a landfill somewhere that really gets to me. I literally can’t handle it. So while some people might be weirded out that I’m essentially “sharing” a wardrobe with hundreds of other women - that doesn’t bother me one bit. The way I see it, we share our cars, our homes and now, we share our closets.
Never in one million years did I think this would be a topic on this blog, but it’s turned out to be this great thing in my life. I love how it simplifies my life. And I love how it gives me space to free my brain of wardrobe questions and instead look at how to spend my energy on my business every week.
If you want to try one of these services, I’ve got coupons, because why the hell not ask, right?
Le Tote will give you $25 off your first tote (50% off) if you use THIS LINK HERE . OR the first three people to email me with the subject line GIVE ME A TOTE at elizabeth(at)beinggeekchic(dot)com - I will send a free tote to you!
Rent the Runway will give you $30 off your first rental or $30 off your first month of Unlimited if you use THIS LINK HERE.
Share economy, FTW.
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classyrevelry reblogged this from beinggeekchic and added: Idk, $2400 a year on renting clothing seems a bit much for me. My work wardrobe is a combo of solid designer pieces I...
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