Kat (00:01)
Hi Tiffany. Can you explain what the background noise we may be hearing is currently?

Tiffany (00:02)
Hi Kat.

Yeah, you might be hearing a cat ⁓ chewing, chomping on food. ⁓

Kat (00:14)
I hope the cat jumps

in the picture. I hope. Well, in any case, ⁓ what if instead of mindlessly buying another new outfit, you could just rent it. What if you only kept your underwear or socks and every week you got a whole new wardrobe delivered to your house and someone else cleaned it and repaired it and you didn't have to do laundry except for underwear and socks.

Tiffany (00:27)
Hmm.

Oh my God,

I didn't even think about the laundry part.

Kat (00:41)
Right? What if you could get designer jeans or jackets or purses or dresses delivered to your door for what it would cost to buy like one tenth of one of them? And what if you could stop the fashion industry from making up 10 % of global emissions every year from manufacturing new clothing by stopping their need to make that new clothing?

Tiffany (01:02)
man.

Kat (01:03)
So these are the dreams of clothing rental companies like Rent the Runway. They sound great, right? Do they hold up?

Tiffany (01:11)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Kat (01:15)
Let's dig in. Welcome to Greening Up My Act.

Yeah. ⁓

We were doing like some beavers and butthead. We got some cat party going on. If you're not watching on YouTube, you're missing out. ⁓ see, here's the cat. ⁓ she's like, time to make biscuits on your neck.

Tiffany (01:44)
Yeah, well, there she is.

This is, ⁓ did I show you her yet? ⁓ not Toad, but, ⁓ what's her name? ⁓ What's my cat's name? It's only been three days. Right? Did you hear that? Yeah. I know. Yeah. ⁓ it's only been three days, so I'm still learning their names. It's hard to remember, especially with two of them. No, definitely not. They don't know their names yet, so that helps.

Kat (01:54)
She's really cute.

Yeah.

Taco. Taco. I think we might call her Toad, but you can hear her purring like a lawnmower. She could be Toad and Taco. Yeah, she's like f-

I love it.

Do they know yours yet? I'd like to know. Meow. Okay.

Yeah. Soon. They'll learn it quick enough. Well, yeah. So, ⁓ we are greening up my act. I'm Kat.

Tiffany (02:23)
Yeah. Yes.

I'm Tiffany.

Kat (02:32)
And we are here to try and get to the bottom of sustainability claims in fashion this season, which is, I know it's crazy.

Tiffany (02:40)
Yes, season nine. That's

wild. It makes me feel really old for some reason.

Kat (02:46)
I know it's only been like

two and a half years, but it feels like, yeah. Yeah.

Tiffany (02:49)
Yeah, I don't know why. ⁓

Yeah, we're talking about fashion, because somehow we haven't. I think it's because I pushed back against fashion because I hate fashion, but.

Kat (02:55)
Fashion. We've. Well, we I

mean, I think because like we did some items on it, you know, but I think we didn't do like a whole like we didn't. We did talk about maybe doing a whole season and I think this is just the perfect time to do it because it's.

Tiffany (03:06)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Kat (03:13)
Yeah, we're doing like product by product rather than like an entire industry at a time. yeah, but ⁓ yeah, this week we're talking about.

Tiffany (03:18)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

and even if you hate fashion, unfortunately, it's part of life, so you have to wear clothes.

Kat (03:26)
it is. it's real. think it's really important.

Yes. And, and, and recognize that the word fashion doesn't just mean like the runway and like designers. It's like every aspect of how we clothe ourselves. And it's so much of consumerism. So like you do have to make a choice about like we did food, but you do have to make a choice about what you're wearing outside of the house. Is the cat like attacking you? What's going on?

Tiffany (03:34)
Mm-hmm. I like high fashion.

Yeah, they're fighting each other on my lap. Yeah, they do. They're super pumped about Rent the Runway. Yeah, but no, you're right. Yeah, you have to make choices.

Kat (03:54)
They love fashion.

Of course. Well, so that's what we're talking about tonight.

Yeah,

yeah. So I only did a couple of ⁓ sources tonight because my question got answered kind of quickly. ⁓ So I have Rent the Runway's sustainability page. ⁓ Vogue UK had an article. ⁓ MIT has a sustainability lab that had an article. And then Mother Jones had an article that they had taken from The Guardian, actually.

Tiffany (04:15)
Okay.

Okay.

⁓

Okay. I like mother Jones.

Kat (04:36)
Um, and I will caveat this by

saying that when you Google the terms that I Google, a lot of the news that comes up is from like 2021. Um, so we're the runway had some like real bad business issues between COVID and now. Um, and I think sustainability. Yeah. Yeah. Which I didn't get into for this. So I'm just going to talk about kind of the science of why.

Tiffany (04:47)
Okay.

⁓ that's why I kind of thought I, I feel like I've heard, I heard rumors, but.

Mm, okay, good.

Kat (05:05)
rent the runway may or may not be more sustainable as a clothing option. So, okay. What is rent the runway? That is our first question. It is a clothing and accessory rental company founded in 2009. The original idea was basically to allow normies like you and me to rent high-end designer dresses for a fraction of the price. So you would rent the item for a set period of time and then return it. And then they clean it and they rent it to another girl. So it was basically like crowdsourcing.

Tiffany (05:09)
Yeah, I like that.

Kat (05:35)
a really expensive garment. So if you saw like Jennifer Lopez's dress and da da da da, and it's $10,000 and you could never afford it. But you know, if 10 of you rent it for, or if a hundred of you rent it for a hundred bucks piece, you know, then eventually it gets to the point where you can, ideally. Okay. So I had heard about rent the runway mostly for events. People were like, yeah, like a wedding, a gala, you know, you would rent a dress. So.

Like back in my day, like in high school or college, if you had to go to prom or something and you couldn't afford the dress, you would buy the $250 dress for the one-off event from the department store, leave the tags on all night, and then return it on Monday hoping you didn't sweat too much at prom or spill punch on it, you know?

Tiffany (06:20)
Yeah, I was like sweat

and the bottom is always haggard. Yeah.

Kat (06:24)
Yeah,

like, I just never bought a dress that was worth more than $50 basically was kind of how I, you know, but that was, you know, if you coveted a dress, the perfect she's all that dress that you're only going to wear once you leave the tags on and you try to return it. That was like, you know, so

Tiffany (06:30)
Yeah.

Yeah, amazingly,

I found my She's All That dress for $30. First, my senior prom, and it was such a good dress. my God, it was such a good dress.

Kat (06:50)
That's fantastic.

Yeah.

I had a, I bought a dress for, yeah, like $30 at Express, I think for my senior prom. And I wore it until I was like 30 and it, until it fell apart. Yeah. I just loved that dress and it wasn't like, it wasn't, it was the shorter dress of spaghetti straps. And okay. Yeah. Oh.

Tiffany (07:09)
that's awesome.

Yeah.

Okay. Mine was very much a prom dress. It was like long, but it was like silk, silky. And

Kat (07:24)
Yeah.

Tiffany (07:24)
it was on major sale. I don't know how it was only 30 bucks, but ⁓ it was like turquoise blue. It was really pretty.

Kat (07:27)
I love that.

Yeah, I'll see. Yeah.

But okay, so a couple of years ago, a woman I knew said she used Rent the Runway for her office clothes and she traveled a lot for work. So what she would do is have the items shipped to the hotel where she was going. Like if she was flying from Austin to New York, she'd have Rent the Runway ship her order to her hotel. And then after her week of work or whatever, she would just re, they send you in a bag and she would just repackage it and.

Tiffany (07:36)
Yeah.

Okay.

Kat (08:03)
you know, drop it off at the UPS or FedEx in the hotel. And so all she had to do was pack underwear and socks for her work trips and pajamas, basically.

Tiffany (08:14)
It's kind of genius, but what if like half of it doesn't fit? You figured out. Okay.

Kat (08:17)
Yeah. So that's what I'm going to, I mean, so

I have been using rent to rent myself because I, I travel for work now a lot and it's been about two or three years. I pay a monthly subscription fee. get five items for a month. So like if there's an outfit that is a shirt, a top and a, and a bottom, that's two items out of my five. Right. ⁓ I pick them out. They get shipped to me in a bag.

And at the end of the month, which is my billing date, when it renews, I put everything back in the bag, take out, they have a pre-printed sticky return label, take it out, slap it on the front, zip it up and text, know, make a thing in the app that the UPS should come pick it up. And usually when you do the swap, you're ordering your next round of items. So usually when UPS picks up the bag that you put on your porch, they're bringing you your next items. And it usually takes, if I order it,

Before noon on Monday, it'll be here by Wednesday morning. So yeah, it's quick. Yeah.

Tiffany (09:23)
That's fast.

Kat (09:27)
the thing for me is picking items is hard. So there's a lot of stuff on Rent the Runway and they're constantly getting new stuff. Ding, ding. ⁓ so you've got to watch out for sizing, which is something you were talking about. So every women's clothing outlet in the universe has their own measuring system. Apparently that's just, there's no standard. Like you'd a size eight at old Navy is a size 12 at J. Crew or something, you know, and like with fashion designers, all bets are off.

Even if you measure your waist in centimeters, there's no telling what the actual size is going to be. So you have to do the research and because of their business issues that they've had in the past, it's not just high fashion, high ticket items that are available. Like brands that I would consider pretty accessible. I'm not saying that like they might be a little bit higher end, but like Madewell is something that like you can order online.

There's a lot of made well, you know, I, I'll just look at the, the retail price of things. And I'm like, you know, this is, this sells for 50 bucks, you know, in the store. I do. I, I mean, okay. Yeah. Maybe I wouldn't buy it and wear it more than once, but it's like, okay. Well, if I'm going to rent something, you know, a lot of times when I travel, I'm going to a climate that I don't keep clothes for. Like I don't really have winter clothes.

Tiffany (10:27)
Right. Yeah.

Right.

Kat (10:56)
So I'm like, okay, I need a cool sweater for my trip to New York or Chicago in the middle of February. But like, you know, a Madewell sweatshirt, like, do I, I don't know. It just feels kind of like a waste of a rental. Yes. So it's.

Tiffany (11:10)
Yeah, it's also called Rent the Runway, so it's

not Rent the Department Store.

Kat (11:17)
Exactly. So, ⁓

They do have a concierge service. So I've done this a few times. I'm like, I'm going to the fricking Dominican Republic. Can you help me pick out? I just don't have the time to sit and go through everything. I like these colors. I wear this size. You know, they're like, what do you want to emphasize? And the problem is that you have to repeat yourself. Like they don't see in your notes. like, could you just look at the things I said last time? Cause it hasn't changed. Like I don't, I don't wear pastels. ⁓ I don't love neutrals. want.

Jewel tones and like standard colors. want like red or blue or, you know, Navy blue, not like neon orange, whatever, you know, and I'd have a small bust, you know, like I have to repeat that all the time. And they're like, what do you like to emphasize? like, yeah, my legs, my shoulders are fine. I guess, I don't know. Like, can you look at the last guy's notes? But they're, they used to be really good about they would get back to you. Like, yes, I've got 15 items in your liked. That's the other thing you can heart things.

Tiffany (12:09)
Right.

Kat (12:19)
so you can save them for later. And then just, you can sort your hearts by, you know, whatever, and then pick your five items from that. if you like to browse clothing shopping, that might be a way to do it. ⁓ And you can, and there are filters, you know, you can use. It's really kind of unwieldy for me. I don't love it. And they don't have an app for Android, so just for iPhone. So that's kind of annoying. Okay. Yeah.

Tiffany (12:46)
interesting. Yeah,

I actually have used it. I was also a member for a very short time when I worked in an office. I think it was only like two months. ⁓ I did kind of love it because I found a couple of things that I was just beyond obsessed with. Like I had one month with the coat of my dreams and I was so devastated to have to send it back and I just, I should have just bought it. I know.

Kat (13:07)
Yes.

You should have just bought it. know that I,

if I, my thing is like, if I keep something for more than a month, like, cause you can keep stuff too. Um, like as part of your next subscription, you'll just get four items rather than five, you know, in your spot, your slots. I'm like, man, if I rented that twice, maybe I should buy it. And then at the second time, like I sent it back and then I was like, Ooh, that would be perfect for this thing. So I rented it again. And I was like, I actually don't love it as much as I did the first time. um,

Tiffany (13:38)
Right.

Kat (13:40)
Buyers remorse is less common. Anyway, so that's how Rent-a-Runway works, basically.

Okay, I'm next up, what eco-friendly claims do they make? So this is according to their sustainability page, they have three goals, major goals. Number one, displace new production. So the idea here is that if people are renting their clothes instead of buying new ones, those new clothes don't ever need to be made. So ideally, we need to grow less cotton, we need to produce less raw polyester, et cetera.

So according to the MIT sustainable supply lab, every 5.5 days, the average US consumer buys a new item of clothing and 50 % of that is disposed of within the first year. So that's something to think about. Five and a half days, the average US consumer is buying a new piece of clothing and then they throw it away. Oh, well, I'm not, yeah, I don't buy. I don't, yeah. So just.

Tiffany (14:25)
every five days?

I am not buying enough clothing.

Kat (14:38)
That's ⁓ a thing to consider. That means that there's new clothing being produced on that scale as well. And you have to think about things that don't get sold, right? They're producing enough so that every consumer in America can buy a new piece of clothing every five days, right? Okay, their second goal is to minimize waste. Not only do you not throw the piece of clothing away when you're done with it, they also divert nearly 100 % of unusable clothing from landfills. They don't say how they do that.

I don't know if they recycle textiles or if by them selling it or something, you know, they, cause they have sales a lot. So I don't know. I don't know how they, they say that almost a hundred percent of, again, unusable clothing you couldn't sell. don't know. They didn't say where they recycle it or what they do with it, but they're also working to minimize the waste they use in shipping and their warehouse operations. So not just the clothing waste itself, but

their operations function. They're trying to minimize waste there. They're also trying to eliminate unnecessary plastic across the board. According to their website, their goal is to move to reusable, compostable or 100 % recyclable packaging by fiscal year 2023. So I wanted to point out it's 2025 when we record this and they haven't updated the sustainability page since I guess. don't know. Their third goal is to offset

Tiffany (15:53)
Huh.

Interesting.

Kat (16:03)
carbon emissions, which is our favorite way of saying plant more trees. Okay. But they don't say plant more trees. Their goal is to have net zero emissions by 2040 by displacing the need for new production of 500,000 garments by 2026. Okay. They want to power their offices and warehouses with 100 % renewable electricity, quantify their supply chain emissions, which

I guess is the first step in controlling your emissions is understanding what they actually are. So they're just going to count it, you know, and they want to sustainably source 50 % of key materials. that's cotton, polyester and linen through exclusive design partnerships. So basically they're saying they will only work with designers or producers who have at least 50 % of their, um,

materials be sustainably grown or made.

Tiffany (17:04)
Okay, understood.

Probably organic cotton, right?

Kat (17:07)
Well, yeah, probably. I know, that's a thing. How do you quantify organic polyester?

Tiffany (17:10)
I mean, there's a lot to it, guess, yeah.

Or like sustainable, yeah.

Kat (17:15)
Right. ⁓ they didn't, at least they didn't say they were just going to plant a bunch of trees, I guess. So, go team. But it is kind of a lot of, that's a lot of green speak that sounds great, but it's like, okay, tell me how. And this sustainability page wasn't like hugely built out. Again, the same thing that you.

Tiffany (17:30)
Okay, I was

wondering if they had numbers. I mean, obviously they haven't updated it.

Kat (17:34)
And again, when you look Google search is, is rent the runway better for the environment. The things that come up are not press releases about their sustainability efforts or anything like that. didn't do a deep dive into how they hit these numbers. How are they hitting these numbers? Cause most of the news about them is about their business operations. Right. ⁓ so

They have other initiatives listed like diversity in their workforce, which we think is important and supporting diversity in fashion overall. Because again, fashion is often a whitewashed skinny girls playground and nobody else is allowed to play. So, ⁓ but again, these are just blurbs on their website. doesn't deep dive into how or, you know, what they're actually doing. So the idea with Rent the Runway sounds really great.

Like instead of buying a fast fashion item every five days that you're going to wear once and throw away, you just rent it for a month, wear it to the event or events you need it for, and then ship it back, right? You're removing the single use aspect of fast fashion. you might wear this item once or twice, but over the whole life of the item, it's going to get worn a lot more ideally. So again, we noticed that if you like something, you can keep it for another month and not ship it back. Or you can buy it outright if you like it.

So this is basically kind of replacing the...

order something, try it on and return it. So it's taking the, you know, when you return the item to rent the runway because it didn't fit, right? They do give you one slot, your first month. If something didn't fit, they will ship you another size. But after that, you've just got to do your research. But basically you can try stuff on for a month and send it back and it doesn't get thrown away. Like with Amazon, right? Returned items are rarely, if ever resold and they generally end up in landfills.

Tiffany (19:28)
Right.

Yeah.

Kat (19:31)
So.

Tiffany (19:32)
Yeah. I saw something really, we should actually do that. Cause I saw like a really interesting dive and look into shoot. think it might have been NPR. Yeah. It was on Amazon returns. Was it NPR? Somebody. It was really interesting. Yeah. We should probably try that or look into that this season. Yeah. Yeah. Cause it was actually less dire than I expected, but

Kat (19:42)
the return Amazon returns, wasn't it? Yeah, we've talked about this.

I think so.

Yeah, like the life of a return on Amazon. Yeah. Yeah.

Tiffany (20:00)
Horrifying how much? Yeah. Anyway.

Kat (20:01)
still yeah yeah

so i had in my notes here that this is i think a good place to take a break so yeah

Tiffany (20:10)
perfect.

Kat (20:27)
Okay, welcome back. was trying to rearrange. My hips are hurting, stupid hips. Okay. Well, so our next question in our format is, is this something a normal person can do or afford? Right. So there are a couple of considerations here. Time. So Rent of Runway is a big time sink. I said this earlier, but if you're someone who just mindlessly scrolls fashion sites,

Tiffany (20:32)
no.

Kat (20:55)
looking for clothing and likes things, this could fulfill that urge very well. And then you limit yourself to five items a month, you know, whatever. But if you're like me and you kind of don't know what you're looking for or what fits you, it's really overwhelming. ⁓ again, every clothing provider has a different sizing for women. If you see something you like, you need to look through the reviews to see if someone shaped like you wore it and looked good in it. It also might not be available in your size. So they tend to have everything in like

from extra small to extra large, which again, let's not get into that, I won't, but they do have a pretty, you enter a lot of information about yourself, like what size do you normally wear at these stores? What's your weight? What's your bust size? ⁓ So it usually can recommend good sizes for you based on that. But again, if you're like me and your size changes depending on where you are in your cycle, it's not gonna know. So.

Tiffany (21:32)
You

Kat (21:55)
Okay. So time is one of the biggest things that I just don't have for it. And again, that concierge thing can help, but if you're not looking for something very specific and full-time shopping, this might not be the right thing for you. ⁓ No, it's free. Included in your subscription service, I think. So when I was looking at their website today,

Tiffany (21:55)
Yeah.

Does a concierge cost money? Okay.

ever.

Kat (22:22)
They didn't have an option where you could just rent one item for one off. It's all subscription based. That's what I could see. And that I may not have, I know, I think that's ⁓ So there are several, several tiers. And you can do one ship in a month and you can get five items from a limited closet.

Tiffany (22:30)
Really?

I don't think it used to be like that.

Whoa.

Kat (22:51)
which means not the high end, like anything that has a retail value $350 or below, that's $109 a month. Or if you want to rent from anything with the retail cost of up to $3,000 and get five items a month, it's 129 for the month. So you pay $20 more to get access to those high design items.

Tiffany (23:11)
Wait.

Okay. You can get one at a time. Is that what you said? Or five per month.

Kat (23:16)
No, you have to

get five at a time.

Tiffany (23:20)
Okay.

Kat (23:21)
So it's always five items. Okay. Then it goes up from there, know, 10 items is $164 a month, one shipment. So you get 10 items in one shipment. You can also add a slot in your shipment for more stuff. Like if you need a handbag that month or something, you could add a slot. pay more on a month, but case by case basis. And then they have higher numbers of shipments per month.

So that's just one shipment a month. for instance, with me, mine renews on the 29th. I send my stuff back on the 28th and I get my new, you know, pick, can order my new stuff on the 29th, you know, whatever. You can get 15 items a month with three shipments. So you get five items at a time, three times to live your house for 224. You can get 20 items in four shipments in a month for 198 a month, or you could get 30 items five at a time, six shipments in a month for 376 a month.

Tiffany (24:17)
There aren't even six weeks.

Kat (24:18)
I know. That's a shipment every four and half days, right?

Tiffany (24:22)
my god,

I don't go places. Like who would need that? Work? For? Even if you're working, you don't need that many go- my god.

Kat (24:25)
I can't imagine. If your entire

wardrobe was all rented, maybe I could see this, and it's you're doing a shirt and pants and a jacket, that's three slots out of five. So maybe, you know, I guess if you have no clothing of your own.

Tiffany (24:45)
Yeah, I mean, if you work somewhere

where image really matters, but I don't know.

Kat (24:49)
Yeah. yeah. So that's

what I said. If you work in a highly visible New York City office and you need a new suit or two every week, I could see Jim maybe justifying 30 items a month. Or if you're a starlet who needs a new outfit every time you leave the house, right? But that's all. Yes. And it's a lot of shipping and a lot of selecting. And you, if you're switching out that bag and putting the return label on every time, it's not hard, but it's like, that's like,

Tiffany (25:04)
Yeah, but I feel like you would just have a stylist at that point, but.

Kat (25:18)
laundry work, you know, like...

Tiffany (25:22)
Yeah, and don't you have to take it to the ⁓ post office?

Kat (25:25)
No, I get it cleaned. I get it picked up from my my the UPS guy who drops it off just picks it up. But you have to schedule a pickup and if you live I live in a city so that might I don't know if you live in the sticks. I don't know if an albuquerque they have the same service, but I think if UPS goes to your house, you know UPS can pick it up. So basically you can also there are other ways you can like the expense can be a little bit different. You can refer people and get

Tiffany (25:29)
OK. Gotcha, gotcha. OK. Right.

Yeah, that could be.

Kat (25:55)
like either an extra spot in your regular shipment or a discount. think I am allowed with my subscription plan, I'm allowed to refer one person a month. And I think we both get like a discount for the month. So ⁓ they also don't charge you to clean or repair items ever, which is kind of shockingly nice. Like.

Tiffany (26:16)
Wait, they don't charge you to repair them?

Kat (26:18)
Mm-mm. Like one time I

had torn a dress, like one of the seams, and I was like, shoot. And I said, by the way, ⁓ I sent the dress back, but it's torn. And they're like, my gosh, I'm so sorry. Was it torn when you got it? We're so sorry. I was like, no, no, I tore it. But they just repair it. So yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah.

Tiffany (26:37)
Whoa. Did they actually repair it though? Or did they just throw it away?

Maybe if it's repairable.

That's so interesting, because I remember being terrified that I was going to mess something up back then.

Kat (26:49)
I know. no.

Do you want, did I tell you my TMI horror story about when I was bleeding nonstop?

Tiffany (26:58)
I don't think so.

Kat (27:00)
Ladies and gentlemen, over the summer, and this is probably TMI, so I'm going to probably put, this is a content warning. It's gross. ⁓ lady issues, women's issues. So, ⁓ if you're, if you don't like menstruation, please skip ahead. ⁓ this summer I bled for 65 days straight, extremely heavily, ⁓ to the point that I couldn't leave the house and I had to go to the emergency room. ⁓

It was extremely painful. was bleeding through my menstrual cup every 20 minutes. That's two ounces of blood. Yeah. So I, I went to the emergency room and they gave me trans-exemic acid, which is a clotting drug and they're like, yeah, totally safe. So I took it and the bleeding calmed down. I was still bleeding like a period, but I hadn't left the house in like two weeks. So was like, okay. I had rented a dress from Rent the Runway.

Tiffany (27:36)
That is insane.

Kat (27:56)
because white dresses were in the summer and I was like, I'm gonna wear a white dress. Pretty, I'm gonna walk around Montreal in my white dress. So I rented this white dress, I never got to wear it. And we were going out to dinner with some friends and I was like, okay, I'm gonna wear this white dress. Because it was really pretty, you know, and I really, I just wanted it to look fashionable and cool. So we're going to this new restaurant, we're going out to dinner with some friends. I was wearing my cup and period undies, but I was like, I'll be fine, because I haven't.

Tiffany (28:04)
no.

Kat (28:25)
We were sitting at the restaurant for 20 minutes. I bled through the cup, the period panties, and three layers of dress.

Tiffany (28:31)
⁓ my god.

Kat (28:32)
And I

stood up to go to the bathroom and saw it. had a ⁓ blood stain the size of a handprint, bright red on the back of my dress. I texted Sean. was like, I have to go home. Ran out of the restaurant, got an Uber home. When I was coming into the house, ⁓ the Uber driver dropped me off and we had a whole conversation about like, yeah, I have a fibroid. That's why I'm, I'm, can't stop. It's a bleeding. And, ⁓

Tiffany (28:42)
my god.

Kat (28:59)
As I was walking in the house, my neighbor across the street was pulling in the driveway and he rolled down his window. He's like, Hey, there's something on the back of your dress, like a leaf or something. I was like, I know. I mean, it was noticeable from across the street. This is like every sixth grade girl's nightmare. Right? I lived it. I lived it in a rented white dress. Yes. ⁓ and I came home and I like scrubbed it in some water and sent it back. They said nothing.

Tiffany (29:11)
⁓ my god

That's what I was going to say. It was like, yes.

Ugh.

Kat (29:26)
There is no way there wasn't a shadow of a stain on that dress, but nothing, absolutely nothing. So you can bleed to death in their dresses and they will take it back. You Jack the Ripper could tear you apart and they won't charge you a fee. ⁓ So anyway, ⁓ yeah. So God bless you. You're at the runway for that, I guess. ⁓ also you can pause your subscription.

Tiffany (29:31)
Wow, that's crazy.

You can get murdered and you can return it.

That's insane. my God. ⁓

Kat (29:55)
easily and so like I didn't travel at all this month and so I didn't need extra clothes and so I just paused my subscription. I didn't get charged. I just sent my stuff back and then I will pick up again at the end of the month for January when I need new clothes. So they don't charge you for that. So okay there are other considerations for access to it. For instance they only have women's clothing. ⁓ Fashion is intrinsically bad for normal shaped women.

So it can be very hard to find quote unquote plus sized items at all, like anything above an extra large. And it's can be hard to find things that don't look good on somebody who's 5'10 and 125 pounds. So that's fashion, you know, and that's true of most shopping and it sucks. Um, and they, they might not have anything you like because they are always updating for the latest look or fad. Something to consider. So the things that are in the season tend to rent out quicker.

Tiffany (30:38)
Right. Yeah.

Kat (30:55)
as well. ⁓ People who are on Rent the Runway can be kind of cutthroat, you know, like some people live by it. So our next question that we ask is, does the earth friendly message need to come back to earth? Okay. And this is where my research into this goes. Yes, it does, unfortunately. So according to mother Jones and a host of other research that I read, renting clothing was found to have the highest climate impact of all shopping options due to delivery and packaging.

Tiffany (31:25)
What?

Kat (31:27)
So the considerations are they have to dry clean every piece when it comes back in. Dry cleaning is real bad for the environment. There are green options out there, but especially at scale, those are going to be super expensive and you probably couldn't afford to do it. So if you own the item yourself, you might, if you're wearing it for two hours, you might not dry clean it. know, no, I used to, I, when I worked in an office where it was kind of high fashion and I like, if I wore a suit,

Tiffany (31:49)
I certainly would not.

Kat (31:56)
I dry cleaned it once a year maybe. This is...

Tiffany (31:59)
That's

what I was gonna I have a coat that I haven't dry cleaned in two years.

Kat (32:02)
Yeah. Yeah. I have lots of coats that have never seen the dry cleaners, you know, unless something real bad happens, like I'm sorry, I'm wearing layers. You're not getting sweat stains and that. And even if you do, nobody sniffing my pits in a coat. Come on. So, but they, every, every item has to be dry cleaned when it comes back. So that's apparently really bad. Also, they do wrap every item, like after you get something dry cleaned, it comes back in plastic, right? So they have to wrap it in a single use plastic bag.

Tiffany (32:06)
Yeah.

Yes.

Kat (32:32)
Now, if you have Ridwell you can recycle that, right? But if you don't, that goes in the trash. It also costs CO2 and water to make plastic bags in the first place. So, also they ship things across the country. So then you ship it back. Right? So if you just bought an item online, they ship it one way, unless you return it. That's just one thing of shipping, right?

If you go to the store and buy it, it's one car, you know. So the MIT lab, sustainable lab, sustainable supply lab did a really interesting breakdown with all these graphs. So they had like six modalities of shopping. So they had, ⁓ buying on site and wearing once. They had, ⁓ buying online and wearing once.

Tiffany (33:00)
yeah.

Kat (33:30)
They had... ⁓

subscription models for buying ones. like those boxes that you can get of new clothes that they ship you, you know, like a subscription model. Stitch Fix, yeah. So wear one subscription. There's also apparently on-site, not just online for those. So there's like an in-person, like you can go to a store, like as Target might have like a box they send you one, like, or I don't know. So they found that of all of those modalities,

Tiffany (33:45)
Like Stitch Fix. Yeah.

Interesting.

Kat (34:03)
Um, the subscription based online rental model create 7.993 kilograms of CO2 per consumer compared to 5.5 kilograms for wear once for buying on site, 5.19 for buying online and wearing once 7.5 for wearing once subscription on site. from the store or 7.195 for where once online subscription.

If you were taking notes there, the subscription, the subscription model is the problem, right? So it's almost eight kilograms of CO2 per consumer to have a subscription rental clothing service because of the plastic, the dry cleaning, the, ⁓

Tiffany (34:34)
Wait, sorry. Go back to...

What, okay, okay.

Okay.

Kat (35:01)
cleaning packet, oh, and packaging and transportation. So.

When you look at this bar graph that MIT put together, you can see the full per consumer bar of how much is made up of manufacturing the piece of clothing, ⁓ packaging the piece of clothing. So for the online rental subscription model, which is Rent-The-Runway, ⁓ you have a very

A smaller sliver of CO2 generated for manufacturing, right? Cause it, it's not five pieces of clothing for five people. It's one piece of clothing that five people wear, right? But the packaging, the cleaning and the transportation are so much greater. That's why it's almost two and a half more kilograms of CO2 per consumer per item to wear an item once when you rent it.

Tiffany (35:50)
Right. ⁓

It's so shocking.

Kat (36:11)
Right.

So while I put this into words, said, while online rental companies like Rent the Runway can reduce the amount of CO2 produced in manufacturing an item, because it's only manufactured once rather than five times, how much stuff gets thrown away because if you wear an item once and throw it away rather than just returning it, and how much individual consumers produce for transportation like driving to the store, those are all reduced. However, the numbers

The amount of CO2 that is produced in packaging, cleaning, and transportation outweigh all these gains.

Tiffany (36:47)
That's insane.

Kat (36:48)
They did have one caveat though. They said,

This is only for clothing you only wear once, right? Like your everyday wear, jeans, t-shirts, sweatshirts, right? The stuff you buy at Target, you know? For special occasion wear, like that one fancy prom dress that you need for a wedding or something, or that jacket and pants you need for one super important business meeting, it actually makes much more sense if it's rented because not as many items.

Tiffany (36:58)
Yeah, was noticing that.

Kat (37:24)
need to be cleaned. So if you just had, if you were able to do a subscription for just one item that you're only, you know, that's special occasion, it's worth it to rent it. That cuts down on the CO2 overall. So the reason Rent the Runway is not a really good sustainable choice is because of the subscription model. Because it's five items every time, every month or more. If you're doing six shipments a month, you know,

Tiffany (37:52)
I was

gonna say you could have what, 30 or more?

Kat (37:54)
Yeah,

there's that's just for the dry cleaning, you know, that's just not sustainable. It's, it's more than just ordering a haul from Target basically.

Tiffany (38:06)
Right,

wow.

Kat (38:09)
So, this again, comes down to, you know, there's so many aspects of what sustainability means, right? Like keeping stuff out of landfills. Yes, rent the runway is better at that. However, you know, transportation, shipping stuff and the plastic wrap and stuff like that. You know, they did say that they want to start using less plastic or recycled plastic or compostable plastic. Again, as we know,

Compostable plastic is not something that you can just get in Kentucky and throw in your backyard. know, like if you have to have a commercial composting ⁓ service in your neighborhood to be able to compost these compostable plastic bags. So again, it didn't look like they had addressed most of these concerns in the past year or two. So I don't know if they have, but.

Tiffany (38:45)
Right.

Kat (39:08)
There are other sustainability issues. ⁓ It's not sustainable as a business model because of how circular renting works. So if you go rent a car from Hertz, right?

⁓ They can rent that car out so many times and still at the end of its life cycle, sell it for an amount of money that they could recoup their costs. They can rent it to you for a high price and sell it for a higher price so that they can, it makes sense. Not so with clothing. ⁓ Clothing's resale value drops way more than a car's. And the more people wear it, the less resellable it is. They can't

recoup those costs over time, really. attend. They do. They do. But clothing loses even more, which is why so many people throw it away. Like you can't sell your shirt at Goodwill that you wore once, you know, cause there's so much out there. But also, ⁓ designers might not want their clothing available discounted on your rental site. Cause that devalues the brand. If it's not.

Tiffany (39:55)
Which is funny because cars lose so much value. We need to drive them off the lot.

Kat (40:22)
Exclusive that only Jennifer Lawrence gets to wear this Gucci dress or people who want to be like her. If you could rent it for a hundred dollars, that devalues the dress, you know? So they, that's part of the reason why the quality available on their site has gone down so much. They have like, I think Jason Wu, they have some designers, but a lot of it is pretty standard stuff you could get at your mall, you know?

Tiffany (40:49)
Wow, that's interesting. ⁓

Kat (40:50)
Yeah.

And I'm not a huge fashionista. I used to be a lot more interested in it, but I'm not, I don't follow stuff. I look at trends so I can be like, okay, if I'm going to Boston this weekend, what should I wear? Cause I don't know, but I'm not into designers. don't know who brands are. ⁓ but it does seem like the retail value of a lot of the stuff you can get on Rent the Runway is a lot lower than I would expect. It's not, it's not giving someone like me without a lot of scratch.

a lot of access to really high end items, you know. So next is our, our granola rating. So this is, we, we rate everything from one to five granolas on how much green hooey the thing relies on. Like how, how good are the claims? How feasible and realistic is it? the scale is one to five. One is soggy, which is the worst mushy, chewy, crunchy, and break your tooth off. Cause the crunchier the granola, the better.

So I'm giving Rent the Runway, yeah, I'm giving Rent the Runway a chewy. So there are some great ideas. That's the three. Yeah, it's in the middle. It needs to be implemented better. ⁓ Basically Rent the Runway and other online rental programs sound great. And it has been great for me because I can't afford to buy these sweaters that I'm only, I'm never gonna wear.

Tiffany (41:50)
Yes, of course.

Is that in the middle? Okay, that's what I

Kat (42:17)
In practice, they're just feeling that need to swap out your outfit all the time, which is what fast fashion is about, right? If you've rented once in a while to supplement your closet, like when you needed to go to a wedding or a big event, it sounds great. ⁓ having a regular rotation of new clay, new clothing just isn't sustainable no matter how you do it at the end of the day.

Tiffany (42:39)
Yeah, that's a takeaway.

Kat (42:41)
And I think we're going to reiterate this over and over again. All of the research I found, it says the most environmentally friendly thing you can do for clothing, buy as few items as possible and wear them for as long as possible. That's it. After that, buying secondhand from a store is your best bet. And if you're going to rent an item, do it once in a while when you need something fancy, but only one item and not a subscription. So.

I feel like the way that I do rent the runway, ⁓ the dry cleaning is interesting. I need to look more into if they're doing greener, because there are green dry cleaning options available. ⁓ I do feel bad about that.

Tiffany (43:30)
I wonder

if they're actually green or are they just like, is it just green? Right? ⁓

Kat (43:33)
quote unquote, green. Yeah. Maybe we should have an episode on dry cleaning. ⁓

but for me, because I'm, mean, let's be honest, me having to travel for work three times a month does more damage to the environment than probably my rent the runway subscription. ⁓

Tiffany (43:55)
Yeah, I mean, we're not here to shame anybody, so it's like...

Kat (43:56)
Right. I,

it's really, it's really helped me. like my, and I do lend my friends trials, you know, from time to time. I'm, I'm not doing it every week. ⁓ I'm only doing five items a month and it's definitely for those trips and I do wear them on those trips. so, you know, and I can recycle the plastic bags cause I have read well. And some of the items have been coming in less plastic, which is nice. ⁓

Tiffany (44:22)
Okay.

Kat (44:24)
So it's worth it for me right now. I don't know if that's going to be true in the future, you know.

Tiffany (44:29)
Yeah.

Yeah, the annoying thing is like, like the idea of supplementing, you know, using it once in a great, once in a blue moon, but ⁓ it sounds like you can't really do that anymore. So that's kind of a pain.

Kat (44:41)
Yeah,

I don't think you can. ⁓ How about this? Let's look right now. I'm going look at rent the runway. Sorry for the typing. Let's see. Wait, let's see. Can you just rent one item, one dress? Apparently I'm not the first person to ask this because the first thing that popped up. Yes, they do have one time rentals. OK. You can rent for a four or eight day period.

Tiffany (45:03)
Okay.

Okay, okay. I was gonna say that would be kind of silly if they didn't let you.

Kat (45:10)
So you find the dress.

You can book it up to four months in advance and then send it back. it's OK. It's like the price is different depending on the item. So why would anyone? OK. Original retail is $3.95. This is not an event dress. And you can rent it for $50. But this is OK. An $880 dress, you can rent it for $115.

Tiffany (45:42)
Okay.

Yeah. 115 still feel well.

Kat (45:45)
That's all the rest of the, my God.

Tiffany (45:53)
Yeah, still feels high, but I'm cheap.

Kat (45:54)
It, yeah,

I'm cheap too. And it's like, okay, like this one's $35. It's a $98 dress. I probably would just buy the $98 dress. Right?

Tiffany (46:06)
Right. Yeah, it's sort of like, it's hard, it's, ⁓ right.

Kat (46:08)
Like I could read that again, couldn't I? Yeah, if it's

an $880 dress, that's the thing, there aren't many.

Like most of this stuff is, you know, 250 max.

Tiffany (46:21)
Yeah, back in the

day, that's kind of what was fun about it is like you could wear clothes that you would never really get your hands on otherwise.

Kat (46:24)
Yeah, I could never afford

this.

Tiffany (46:30)
Which is kind of amazing that the designers are like, no thank you, we don't want the peasants to wear our clothes.

Kat (46:35)
Yeah.

Well, I think, know, originally when they started, I think it was kind of like they did it out of their closet, you know, and it was like, not out of their closet, but like, all right, if we all go in on this dress and rent it. Because that was another thing they talked about. If you just did that with your friends, you know, like, the problem is none of my friends are my size, but like.

Tiffany (46:54)
Yeah.

Kat (46:57)
somebody came to your bedroom and borrowed your dress for a hundred bucks, you know, and that would, that would be kind of how you paid it off over time. That actually is a more sustainable model than the subscription service. But anyway, so.

Tiffany (47:10)
Right.

Yeah.

Kat (47:14)
You know, I think we're going to say this a lot this season, but mindfulness about your fashion, you know, consumer habits. Like, do you need a new outfit every week or can you buy that $30 prom dress and wear it for the rest of your life? Like I did.

Tiffany (47:32)
Right, yeah that's amazing.

I think I still have mine but I haven't worn it. It's just so promy.

Kat (47:41)
Tell your man friend that you want to go to a gala, make him sit on the board of some expensive gala charity and go to

Tiffany (47:46)
There you go.

Yeah. There is actually I got there's a conservation society near me who sent me like a, you know, $50 ticket for some event or whatever. thought about going. I mean, I would have to pay, but not saying they sent me a ticket. They said sent me a thing to pay for a ticket. But I know we would be the youngest ones there, which is fine.

Kat (47:57)
nice.

Right.

That is my, I tell you what, if you're the youngest person in the room, you are in the right room.

Tiffany (48:15)
⁓ that's true. You have said that before.

Kat (48:18)
I want to go to the Santa Fe Opera. It's no longer as true as it used to be, but oftentimes I am one of the younger people.

Tiffany (48:24)
Okay, all right. Yeah, you're right. There's nothing wrong with that. ⁓ I like it.

Kat (48:27)
Alright, meet some new friends that you wouldn't-

Yeah. Hobnob with people who have a different perspective. They have much better taste in wine.

Tiffany (48:37)
Yeah, this was like a wine thing, so I it would be tasty. Right. Yeah, maybe next year when we actually have money. hopefully, fingers crossed. Maybe next year.

Kat (48:40)
They eat the best food.

Okay, all right. We all keep saying that. I'm like, next year when we're all eating turnips, we can't afford

electricity. I know. Oh, wait, did you just make a joke? Cause it's also, we're recording this the week before Christmas. So two weeks before, no, week and a half before Christmas.

Tiffany (48:53)
Jesus Christ, it's so true.

Yeah, no, it was, ⁓ I won't have to pay for daycare next year. So yeah. Yeah, like kindergarten. Yeah. It's going to be insane.

Kat (49:07)
really? She's going to school. ⁓ so you're really going to have more money. Unless,

unless you both decide to just start new businesses and then you'll have no money.

Tiffany (49:20)
Yeah, which we could. It might be happening. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I could share that actually, because I'm scared of AI. Actually, I'm really quite terrified, like all of us are, because I do writing stuff, like content stuff, which is right on the chopping block. Yeah, I kind want to start. Not kind of. I want to, and I'm going to, because this is official. I'm going to start a...

Kat (49:22)
Anything could happen. Our entire economy could tank.

Yeah

Tiffany (49:48)
sustainable landscape design business. So I'll keep everybody posted on that. Yeah. ⁓

Kat (49:51)
Yeah, be on the lookout. Yeah, because you could

do it. maybe you could even do it for me. That could be.

Tiffany (50:00)
I know,

that's what I mean. I'm going to start locally, but it could be virtual too.

Kat (50:06)
Yeah,

Davi, and you know, and you me a visit so you could kill two birds with one stone there.

Tiffany (50:10)
Yes, my

god, that'd be so fun. I could do a site survey. ⁓

Kat (50:13)
Do give you like cat?

is?

Tiffany (50:16)
⁓ no. If I judged you, I would be the biggest hypocrite on earth. But you have mud issues, right? Are you used to? Because you can solve those. ⁓ you can solve those. I don't know how yet, but I'm going to learn. Yeah. OK, I don't think it has to be rocks, I have cats. Do you hear them?

Kat (50:21)
Awesome.

Yeah, well, we for sure have mud issues, so.

Okay, well, Sean doesn't like rocks, so...

a little bit. It's raining here so I hear the rain but having a good time? Yep. I love it. Awesome.

Tiffany (50:41)
Okay, okay, okay. They are little horsies running around. Stampeding around. So

yeah, we'll keep you guys posted on our adventures and our next plans for... But you know, starting a business is so friggin' hard and it takes so long and I'm not planning to quit my job anytime soon, so...

Kat (50:55)
Yeah. Yeah.

It is. It is.

You know, sometimes the things that make us jump are the unexpected things.

Tiffany (51:10)
No,

you're right. could get fired. Oh, God. Thank you. Please, God.

Kat (51:13)
I not. not, I'm gonna knock wood for you. There you go. But

yeah, next week you're talking about quints or perhaps is it quince?

Tiffany (51:22)
Yeah.

You know what's so funny I've heard people because Quince is like the the thing on podcast ads like it's just all over youtubers, podcasters, whatever, it's like everywhere. And somebody, one of my favorite podcasters, pronounces a guy so I don't know if that makes a difference but he pronounces Quince one week and then the next week. He didn't call himself out I thought he would but he's like Quince.

Kat (51:52)
I would be fun to have like an advertising just call them a different name every time. But like you're like in French it'd be cancer.

Tiffany (51:54)
Right.

Yeah, it's pretty good. ⁓ shoot. You know, I wanted to order something from them, but I might not have time. ⁓ Yeah, well, was just kind of like, I really want to test it, the quality. So if we end up talking about something else, maybe that's why, because.

Kat (52:07)
Christmas or...

Well.

Okay, ⁓ cause

I have ordered from quince, so I have. Okay, then we'll switch out. What do you want to talk about next week? We can figure it out next week.

Tiffany (52:22)
You have! Oh, then I don't have to.

Well, maybe you could,

I could maybe do the research and then you could just give your take on it. If you feel comfortable. Okay. Yeah. Cause I just, I'm just so curious. Cause it's like everybody raves about it, but these are people trying to sell it to me. So I'm just fascinated. And maybe I still will. They have like gloves or something that I need gloves. It's not like him. So anyway, we'll see.

Kat (52:31)
sure. I can talk about the... Yeah, I can talk about the quality. Yeah, Yeah.

Right. Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, there's there's always the $50

cashmere Mongolian cashmere shirt or whatever. Yeah.

Tiffany (52:58)
Right, right, right. It's always, So funny. Cool. Well, go head over to YouTube. Thank you for listening. I feel like a robot right now.

Kat (53:13)
But yeah, watch us on YouTube. can see Tiffany's cats and like and subscribe there and yeah, awesome. All right.

Tiffany (53:17)
Yes.

Yeah,

and cool. We will talk to you soon. Thank you for listening. All right, bye.

Kat (53:23)
Yeah. Yep. Thank you.

Good night.