Goodbye, Rent the Runway Unlimited. Thanks for Everything
It was thanks to Unlimited that I had a perfectly way-too-big pair of sweatpants to wear home from the hospital after giving birth. It was thanks to Unlimited that I snagged a bunch of caftans to wear while I wandered around in a postpartum fog, providing me the ability to take my boobs out at all times. When my breastmilk supply regulated and my boobs didn’t hurt so much and I could wear normal tops again, I sent all the caftans back, knowing I’d never have to see them again and could go back to renting things that made me feel like I’d actually gotten dressed.
For other women who don't work from home, the idea of renting clothes provided a way to elevate their style without buying an entire “office” wardrobe. “My truest self just wears jeans and a T-shirt or a flannel,” Glamour senior editor Anna Moeslein tells me. “But my colleagues all dress so cute that I felt like I needed to find a way to step it up without spending a ton on clothes I wouldn't wear in my off hours.” Moeslein says she did often end up hanging on to pieces she loved to wear out on the weekends and that the service opened her mind, fashionwise. “I tried on so many different pieces and styles that I have a much clearer idea of my overall vibe and what fits work best for me now,” she says.
The ability to try out different “vibes” was what drew Anna Eilinsfeld, a TV, film, and Broadway actor, to Unlimited. She often rented pieces to appear more like the characters she was auditioning for. “I loved that I could use it for, say, business-casual wear, which I never need unless I'm auditioning for a show like Suits,” she says.
Just as I went back to work after my second maternity leave, I got the notification that the Unlimited Swap plan was coming to a close. It didn't feel like a total surprise: maybe because I could somehow sense a move away from the plan in its current iteration was coming—apparently it was in the works long before the pandemic, which was tough on rental services generally (at one point during the COVID crisis, WSJ reported RTR's subscriber activity was down nearly two-thirds.) The company also says only 4% percent of Unlimited users were swapping out their items more than 16 times a month, so the shift away from Unlimited is to address the fact that many users were paying for more items than they were using—the new plans will offer 4, 8, or 16 items per month rather than the old “infinity.”
When I first read the news, I was disappointed. Because of my fluctuating sizes, I was sure I was using my plan, well, unlimitedly. My favorite part of having endless options was trying on a pair of jeans, discovering they didn’t fit, and—instead of throwing them across the room in a rage-induced tear fit that sent me into a confidence spiral—easily swapping them out and getting a new pair that did fit. And I was far from the only one who used it this way. Lauren Curtis, a fellow mom of two and Unlimited subscriber in Brooklyn, expressed the same thing. “The Unlimited option gave me the confidence that I would always find something to wear, even on days where I was feeling the lowest about my body changes,” she says. “There were no risks if I didn't love something or it didn't fit correctly—I would just send it back. Now I feel like I'll have to be more careful about what I pick out.”
Bummed, I reached out to the company to get more insight about the end of the Unlimited era. A spokesperson walked me through the new plans: The eight-item plan is actually very similar to Unlimited. You can have four pieces at home, and you get one opportunity over the course of each month to swap them out (the name is a bit of a misnomer—as it’s more like up to eight items a month, since you can keep anything as long as you want). With the 16-item plan, you get four total shipments per month. On the four-item plan, you can swap on your billing date.
