The 5 best clothing rental services we tried: Nuuly, more

May 2024 · 12 minute read
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If you have a full closet yet somehow have nothing to wear, join the club.

Or more specifically, a clothing rental club, as that seemed to be the solution to my shopping addiction without breaking the bank or making my closet even more full than it already is.

When browsing clothing rental services it’s hard to see what they offer without first signing up. Since most women don’t have the time, energy and finances to commit to the plethora of subscription services out there, I decided to devote my day job to doing just that.

In the month of September, I signed up for, shopped, wore and retuned items from different rental services, including Rent the Runway, Nuuly, Armoire, Nordstrom Trunk Club and Gwynnie Bee. Not only was I the most fashionable one in my home office (apologies to my kitten-turned coworker) and my post office’s most frequent customer, but in this pursuit I discovered what sets each service apart.

Read on for more information on size-inclusivity, the best for designer finds, ease of use and more, walking you through the entire process from account creation all the way through rentals and returns. To skip to a specific service, use the bulleted list below to jump to the rental company you want to know more about.

Best clothing rental service for trendy items:

Nuuly, $88/month for six items

If you love trendy clothes from brands like Anthropologie, Free People and Urban Outfitters, but can’t afford to keep buying new pieces, Nuuly is for you.

I was shocked to find out that the clothing rental service was actually owned by the URBN parent company of those aforementioned brands, as they have over 150 designers. But then after seeing the youthful and trendy options on the site, it all clicked into place. This service is perfect for those looking for new, trendy pieces, as I was excited to see some of my favorites from Anthropologie on the site that I had just seen in the stores a week prior.

Nuuly only offers one plan, keeping things simple with six items at a time for $88, great for a straight forward shopper who wants a few iconic items at a time. When curating my closet — what Nuuly calls your saved items — I wanted to pick out some statement pieces that I could style alongside my own, as well as stand-out dresses for events and mix-and-match items for the office.

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Five of the six items fit perfectly, and I will give kudos to the brands for offering a wide selection of styles in inclusive sizing, as I wasn’t left with shapeless items when filtering my search above a size 10. The return process was also pretty simple, as the return shipping label is included in your bag, and all you need to do it drop it off at a local UPS.

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Best clothing rental service for designer items:

Rent the Runway, use code RTRNYPOST21 for 3 months of the 8-item plan for $99/month (originally $149/month)

If you’ve heard of clothing rental, chances are Rent the Runway is the first one you found.

This was true of me, too, which is why I was so excited to join and see what all the hype was about. I chose the most-loved eight item plan, which retails for $149 per month and gives you two shipments with four items each.

Then it kicks off into high gear, letting you shop from over 750 different designers from Kate Spade and Coach to Vera Wang and Oscar de la Renta to name a few. The huge inventory could be considered a pro or a con depending on the type of shopper, but for me it was a huge benefit, as you can shop for an event outfit, a happy hour dress, loungewear for working-from-home and even accessories like sunglasses, handbags, jewelry and shoes, which many platforms don’t offer.

A huge highlight is that after you spend hours and hours picking your items, the rest is super quick, with my order shipping out just one day after I had placed it — a perk of living in New York, but other customers should still get a pretty swift 2 to 3 day delivery.

Sure enough, my items arrived 24 hours after I had placed the order, coming in a reusable garment bag with each item hung up on hangers and inside of recyclable plastic coverings. Three of the four items fit just as the reviews had said, which is another perk of the service — since RTR is so widely used, there are tons of customer reviews to base your order on.

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Best clothing rental service for speed and efficiency:

Armoire, use code NYPOST21 for 3 months of Armoire’s Unlimited Plan at $179/month (originally $249/month)

Sometimes you have the right clothes, but no clue how to style them into a killer outfit.

No longer with Armoire, the clothing rental and personal styling service for the working woman. Now, they don’t market themselves that way, but after browsing their offerings during my month-long Unlimited membership, the abundance of stunning blazers, slacks and midi-dresses from mid-tier designer brands like Scotch & Soda, French Connection, Theory, Diane Von Furstenberg and Nicole Miller, made me give them that moniker.

Signing up and getting started is streamlined and easy, with a three-pronged quiz to start. After choosing what sort of style you are looking for, what occasions you need outfits for such as work or vacation and plugging in your measurements, a closet is created just for you. You will also need to pick a subscription model, with options for four items per month, seven items per month or the unlimited plan in which you can rent six items at a time but return and re-rent as many times as you want, which is the one I opted for.

I decided to use their personal styling service, via the chat function on the site, as opposed to choosing from the 75 options in my personalized closet from the quiz results that had more of a fall feeling. After telling them that I was looking for more summery items with a youthful flair, they created another 70-item closet in just under 30 minutes — very impressive.

A huge factor of Armoire that I loved was their speed, as in addition to how quick their stylists work, their shipping and delivery was also super fast, shipping out one day later and arriving at my home after two more business days.

As for the actual clothes, I ordered five dresses and one pair of shorts and from those, half of the items fit. This wasn’t too surprising, as with any rental service it does take a few tries to really get to know how the brands fit, but all in all I was thrilled with my first try and walked away with a dress for the US Open, a summery dress from Sanctuary and a pair of shorts for a rooftop party.

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Best clothing rental service for mid- and plus-sized women

Gwynnie Bee, starting at $49 for one item at a time

Fashion should be made for everyone, no matter their shape and size. Gwynnie Bee believes this too, making it a safe space for women like myself who are not a sample size. The clothing rental service used to just be for extending sizing, but has now expanded their reach to include items ranging from a size zero through size 32, starting in January 2018, according to the site.

Personally, I love online shopping sites that allow me to see both straight and extended sizes, plus, seeing the clothes on full-figured models helped me not only pick my own outfits but boosted my confidence in the site.

This site is different from others in the way that you can’t choose which items come to you in each shipment — unless you pay an added $5 fee per item. Instead, you fill your closet with at least six items at a time and then the team at Gywnnie Bee chooses two items at a time to send out to you. This makes it great for having an endless wardrobe, but not for someone that is planning specific outfits for events.

They ended up shipping one item at a time, which was fine since I chose pretty basic items like dresses and shirts, but something to note if you planned to wear items together. I ended up going more casual for this review, wearing the striped Karen Kane shirt to the doctor’s office and the other outfits out on other errands and to lunch with a friend. Returning was also pretty easy, as each item, even when shipped individually, came with pre-paid bags and labels.

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Best clothing service for personal styling

Nordstrom Trunk Club, $25 styling fee, applied to what you choose to purchase

If you love clothes but hate returning them after your rental period is over, maybe a personal styling service is the best for you.

Meet Trunk Club, a service from Nordstrom that brings personal styling and at-home shopping together. It works the same as a clothing rental service in that you get presented with 10+ options per box from a variety of brands that can be shipped right to your door. However, Trunk Club is not for those who want to wear the clothes and then return them — all items you want to actually wear, aside from the initial try on, you must purchase and then send back the rest.

With that being said, if you are looking for a personal stylist that only costs a $25 styling fee (which applies to anything you end up buying) and the chance to buy high-quality hand-picked items without having to set foot in a store or dressing room, keep on reading.

The quiz was super specific, asking me the fit and style of my favorite jeans, the cut of how I like my shirts to fall on my body and even what issues I typically run into when shopping, like having a short torso or longer legs. They also asked my how much I like to spend on certain items, to make sure they weren’t offering me $1000 shoes when I only planned to spend $100.

I ended up getting a curated box of the full ten items, falling in love with many of them and actually buying the black Madewell jeans and a plain white tee because I just couldn’t resist. Full disclosure, my first attempt at a trunk didn’t actually work out, as the suggestions were simply not my style. The good news is that you can simply cancel a Trunk and start over, so that’s exactly what I did, with no penalty or charge. Another good thing is that you can request more trunks whenever you need, so I’ll be doing this again when in need of a closet refresh down the road.

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