Mobile dress store to visit USC
Rent the Runway (RTR) is a website fulfilling most girls’ dreams: access to hundreds of designer dresses at a fraction of the retail price. How does this happen? You log onto www.renttherunway.com, browse through hundreds of dresses until you find one you like and pay between $50-$450 to rent the dress for whatever occasion you’re shopping for. RTR has had great success, especially among younger girls in college, because of the many occasions where girls will need a new dress but will only wear it once. RTR is a great option for events like formal, semiformal, cocktail parties or openings.
For the first time ever, RTR is going on a mobile tour. Not only is it driving a truck full of designer dresses and jewelry, it’s touring specifically throughout the South. It’s called “Rent the Runway Storms the South” and it’s making a special stop along the way: USC’s campus.
Maria Alosco, Rent the Runway’s College Coordinator said the south is RTR’s most popular region, making up about 60 percent of the business RTR gets from colleges. With gameday, Greek life events and even homecoming, it’s not hard to see why the south brings RTR so much of its business. Taking this into consideration, Alosco said there will be five different categories of dresses on the mobile tour: holiday, sorority formal, girl on a budget, homecoming and Halloween.
RTR will have a large, built-from-the-ground-up mobile showroom, where it will have representatives helping girls look at dresses and telling them about RTR all day. Alosco said they will also be having games, giveaways and a pop-up fashion show for those who aren’t necessarily interested in renting any of the dresses or even for the boyfriends that get dragged along to the event. Alosco wants as many people as possible to stop by and wants it to be a fun, accessible event for everyone.
There are certainly designers that are more popular with the college set than others. Alosco said she made sure to really stock up on a few specific designers before starting the southern tour: Herve Leger, Lilly Pulitzer, Shosanna and Milly, to name a few.
So how does RTR get all these dresses at such a low price to begin with?
“[The] secret ingredient is definitely the relationships with the buying team and the designers themselves,” Alosco said. “A lot of these designers are selling their items at a much higher price point, [and] see Rent the Runway as an opportunity to introduce their designs to a whole new demographic.”
RTR is a great opportunity for girls and women to become well versed in fashion and maybe later buy a dress from the same designer instead of renting one.
The Rent the Runway mobile shop will be in front of Russell House next Monday, Sept. 30, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. There will also be side activities like a braid bar, photo booth and fashion show at 4 p.m.
For more information, visit http://www.rtroncampus.com/.
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