Hiring maternity clothes

[PipG1]

Hi all!

I'm looking for your feedback please!

A good friend of mine is 5 months pregnant and is a medical sales rep. She needs to dress really smartly about 4 days per week to go on meetings to see her customers. The other day she was complaining about the costs of formal maternity wear that she was having to buy (suit jackets, dresses and skirts) and is already getting bored with the lack of variety in her maternity wardrobe.

Anyway this got me wondering whether it would be useful for pregnant women to be able to hire out maternity clothes for work, and for evening wear. It seems they have started doing this in the States, particularly for hi-end clothing. In a way it would be similar to "Girl meets dress" that new website where you can hire posh dresses.

I just wondered what you thought of this idea?? Would you use it?

Thoughts appreciated. I hope it's ok to post this kind of thing here, apologies if not.

Thanks!

Pip :)

[natwebb79]

Well I can see the sense in the idea and am sure some people may like to take advantage of such a scheme. I personally have bought pretty much all of my maternity clothes second hand from ebay and plan to sell them on afterwards. Has your friend tried that?

[Flisspaps]

I wouldn't bother to be honest - you can get perfectly smart maternity clothes at a reasonable price, no need to hire anything. I don't see the problem with having one or two nice suits and then a range of maternity tops...pretty much the same as a pre-maternity wardrobe for most people!

[wompoopigeon]

In your friend's situation, I'd just buy 4 maternity tops and one skirt in a basic colour like black, and then wear her usual suit jackets unbuttoned over the top.
I wouldn't have thought there is a hiring gap in the market TBH. Yes it gets a bit boring wearing the same things over and over, but I am not sure I can see your market. Maybe for evening dresses.
By the time you're onto your second you already have lots of clothes, plus borrowing from friends, plus eBay etc

[idlevice]

If it was for a business idea, you could also include event wear & evening wear, for weddings etc I would have liked to hire a dress for a wedding I went to in first pregnancy - took ages to find something then I only wore it once, tried to wear it when not pregnant but was mortified when somebody assumed I was pregnant again!

[BikeRunSki]

There are already sites where you can hire maternity evening wear.

As for formal work wear, I agree that there is actually plenty out there. Not a wild amount of choice, but enough to keep you going through full time work for say 4 months.

Surely the cost of hiring workwear for 4 days a week x 4 months would be pretty high anyway?

I have worked through 2 pg and have not found this to be a problem, although I don't have to wear suit jackets.

[BiscuitNibbler]

By the end of my pregnancy I had just two dresses I could wear to work. Although boring, it was for a limited time and I wouldn't have wanted to spend any more money than I already had. I really don't think many people would bother hiring anything.

[nannyl]

I wouldnt bother hiring either

I would do the same as many others have mentioned..... get a 'worn once' smart outift from ebay, then sell it on afterwards as a 'hardly worn' outfit.

[AlpinePony]

Weren't you asking about this the other week? Is this just lazy marketing research?

TBH, if you can't afford maternity clothes you can't actually afford to raise a child.

[PipG1]

It's nice to hear your thoughts.

This isn't a business idea as such, just a thought I had after speaking with my friend. I work in a very different field, in the media!

I suppose it's not so much that pregnant women can't afford to buy clothes, it's just I wondered if there was a more cost effective way of still getting to wear a variety of clothes without shelling out a lot for a short period of time.

I've been looking around and see that there are several companies in the US that also hire out baby clothes. So maybe it's a new trend!

[KellyKettle]

I also wouldn't hire maternity wear really, I find that the comfortale stuff like jersey or wrap cardigans bobble after a while and I certainly couldn't return them. I'd have to hire a lot of items to not end up over-wearing something and returning it looking a bit weathered.

If I could afford to hire lots of stuff then I would probably be better off just buying it rather than hiring for 6 months or so.

Plus, who wants to be arranging courier returns for a load of maternity clothes just after your baby arrives. They'd end up sat in the wardrobe like overdue library books stressing me out.

You can buy staple items cheaply enough and friends/family often will lend things to each other. My sister and I seem to have timed our pregnancies perfectly to just keep passing clothes backwards and forwards to each other - for free!

Next do a good range for work. I bought two maternity suits from there with spare trousers which lasted me through two pregnancies now. I think it was less than £100 for the suit.

And Ebay of course

[AlpinePony]

Again, you spoke about this just last week "in America". If I see another post like this touting for business I will report it.

[KellyKettle]

Judging by the way this thread has gone I don't think the business would be a going-concern for long Alpine.

In these times of austerity I think hiring mat clothes would be seen as a luxury rather than an essential and not many of us are in the market for luxuries at the moment.

[MsChanandlerBong]

I would have thought a website specialising in pre-loved maternity wear sales would be better - a bit like an off shoot of ebay. I bought an Isabella Oliver dress from ebay, that the seller had only worn a few times. I have only worn it 3 times so far (probably will get 1-2 more wears out of it max) so will resell it but probably not until a while after the baby is born ie when I can be arsed. Would be nice if all the maternity clothes sales were in one place online rather than having to trawl through ebay. Not sure how viable it would be as a business though.... as ebay do what I am proposing, and very well, it is just me being lazy that I don't like having to do various searches to look around ebay.

[KellyKettle]

Oh yes, there is a wedding dress website like that actually. I don't know if it does well, its like Ebay for wedding dresses but its convenient. Probably. Lots of pictures of brides in their dresses with their heads and grooms cropped off