Hey, Quick Question: Are Your Fashion Rentals Always Getting Cleaned?
Welcome to our column, "Hey, Quick Question," where we investigate seemingly random happenings in the fashion and beauty industries.
Earlier this summer, one Nuuly user took to TikTok to express her shock upon finding that a dress she rented had a conspicuous stain that rendered the item unwearable. A few weeks later, another allegedly found bugs in her package, also taking to TikTok to share her experience. As clothing rental services grow their user base, the mountains of laundry pile up accordingly, and it's hard not to wonder: Are clothes always being cleaned thoroughly between rentals?
Online complaints like these may be par for the course as rental services gain popularity and hurry to scale their operations (laundry included) in response. That doesn't mean they aren't cause for concern — for potential customers and the companies alike — but they don't necessarily tell the full story.
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Since 2009, Rent the Runway has provided subscribers with an avenue to try new, mostly designer brand items without the high cost associated with purchasing them. Back then, rental was mostly seen as a cost-effective means to dress for formal events, such as weddings, proms and galas. In 2014, Forbes reported that the service had more than 5 million users and was, at that time, home to the largest dry cleaning service in the United States. In those days, the average dress survived 30 rentals and items were reportedly received, cleaned and shipped out in new orders the same day.
Nuuly entered the scene in 2019. Owned by URBN, the parent company behind Urban Outfitters, Free People and Anthropologie, the platform offers subscribers six items per month for $98. Patrons of Rent the Runway, meanwhile, can rent single items or choose from five-, 10- and 20-item subscription plans ranging from $94 to $235 per month.
When the pandemic struck in 2020, formal events, the driving force for clothing rental at the time, were largely postponed and canceled. The concept of sharing a wardrobe with the entire country seemed risky, and within the first week of lockdown, Rent the Runway lost more than half of its subscriber base. CEO Jenn Hyman thought the company wouldn't survive, but with the help of some creative re-negotiation, it pulled through.
As society recovered from COVID-19, the fashion community as a whole prioritized comfort with newfound exhilaration. The rental space shifted from a largely formalwear-centered market to an everyday one, seen as a way to avoid overconsumption and fast fashion. By renting high-quality pieces for everyday wear, consumers could expand their wardrobes for any dress code without paying premium prices.
Nuuly announced that it reached profitability in the third quarter of 2023 (a feat that competitor Rent the Runway is still working toward).
In March, Modern Retail reported that Nuuly had around 200,000 subscribers, all sharing the items kept in its 300,000-square-foot fulfillment center outside of Philadelphia, Penn. In February of this year, it opened another 600,000-square-foot facility outside of Kansas City. As clothing rental services have regained their footing post-pandemic and scaled up, it's no surprise that feedback from shoppers — both positive and negative — has increased in tandem. As all big (and small) businesses do, despite their best efforts, they sometimes miss the quality control mark.
Internet discourse surrounding some rather, well, buggy experiences, picked up earlier this summer, but complaints about smelly, dirty or damaged clothing are nothing new.
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Many complaints about both Nuuly and Rent the Runway can be found on Reddit threads like R/femalefashionadvice, R/NuulyReviews and even R/weddingplanning, ranging from simple wrinkles and incorrect items to odd smells to outright horror stories, like the aforementioned bug experience. One user claimed that an unidentified undergarment was included in a package; others reported stains that rendered clothing unwearable.
Several users have even filed official complaints with the Better Business Bureau. Just this month, Rent the Runway customer Jenny B filed one stating that items in a Rent the Runway package were "dirty," smelling of perfume that wasn't hers. Similar reports of seemingly unclean or damaged items follow.
Alison Gary, founder and editor in chief at Wardrobe Oxygen, has closely documented her experiences with both services for the past several years. During her five months as a Nuuly subscriber, she had at least one failed item per order, as clothing was "often overworn, faded from wear, elastic shot, and not looking fresh," she tells Fashionista.
"I've now tried three clothing rental programs, and the other-person smell is real and gross," Gary wrote in a Rent the Runway review. "Sometimes it's perfume, sometimes it's B.O., sometimes it's a super strong detergent." The issue of smell, perhaps the most common complaint among users, has been seconded on social media time and time again. She no longer uses any rental services; however, if rental services consistently kept mid-sized clothing from high-quality brands in stock, Gary tells Fashionista that she might re-subscribe.
These types of anecdotes are at odds with the rental services' claimed cleaning practices. Both Nuuly's and Rent the Runway's websites state that they complete all wet and dry cleaning in-house and even utilize steam tunnels to sterilize garments.
URBN CEO David Hayne described 2024 as a "year of efficiency" in a recent Modern Retail article, as it works to advance automation in its cleaning process, saving cleaning experts the time they have previously spent walking from place to place while retrieving and passing garments along. This automation could play a large part in minimizing cleaning flukes, as cleaning experts are difficult to find and vital to rental companies since they're the ones fighting the smells, stains, rips and even infestations that affect clothing in nationally shared rental closets.
A 2014 article by Fast Company stated that Rent the Runway has had the most difficulty recruiting stain spotters over any other position. These spotters are vital to their operation, as they are the ones tasked with noticing and efficiently and effectively spot-treating stains that are found on nearly half of items upon return. At that time, Rent the Runway completed a 20-step process for cleaning and stain removal. The company published details on its current cleaning process in August of 2022 and estimated that it had repaired more than 400,000 stains and nearly 2 million defects in the calendar year prior. (Rent the Runway was contacted in the reporting of this story, but did not get back to Fashionista with comment.)
Kim Gallagher, executive director of marketing and customer service at Nuuly, tells Fashionista via e-mail that the company has a "16-point inspection process" for each item after cleaning, covering everything from stains, piling, rips and tears to missing buttons, color fading, lint and a 'smell' test."
"In addition to our garment inspection, we also ensure that our Nuuly bags are disinfected using a hospital-grade solution between each rental," she adds. "We also have dogs on-site at our facilities that are trained to sniff out bedbugs from any totes and garments."
For wet laundry cycles, Nuuly uses Aqua-Velvet, which Gallagher described as "an all-in-one, acid-based detergent that offers superior cleaning power while being gentle on fabrics and the environment." As for dry cleaning, both Nuuly and Rent the Runway use perchloroethylene (PERC)-free methods.
Even with intensive procedures in place, mistakes happen — however, Gallagher argues they're rare. Since Feb. 1, 2024, she claims Nuuly has shipped nearly 1.5 million orders (almost 9 million garments), but has received fewer than 200 complaints regarding severe damage. She states that each complaint is thoroughly investigated and solved on an individual basis.
"Our top priority is to act quickly to ensure our customers have a positive experience, even when issues arise… We view every mistake as an opportunity to learn and improve our processes to better service our customers in the future," she says.
The reality is, when sharing clothes with millions of strangers, one assumes the risk of an occasional quality fluke. Clothing rentals remain a cost-effective way to extend one's wardrobe. As companies continue to enhance their quality assurance measures, the hope is that mishaps are continually reduced.
