No more buying: The renting spree fuelling Sydney’s Spring Carnival

The days of purchasing a dress upwards of a thousand dollars are in the past, with many women turning to the renting world for their fashion.

First-time punters off to The Big Dance on Cup Day at Royal Randwick are saving cash on their outfits by renting the perfect frock for race day.

Ally Thurn and Jaimie Redenbach are ‘super-lenders’ who, with the help of outfit rental service The Volte, are offering up their most beautiful gowns to savvy spenders and making money in the process.

Jaimie, a Sydney accountant and health service professional Ally said renting out their dresses through a hire company was “easy”.

“Our skills are surprisingly very complementary to running a dress hire business.”

The pair expect to see some of their dresses on punters at The Big Dance next week, with profits from the hire giving them a reason to own an extensive collection of designer dresses.

Ally Thurn, Jaimie Redenbach and Masha Basman, in the rose garden at Centennial Park, today. (story is about girls who rent out their own dresses to other girls for races and nights out). Picture: Justin Lloyd.

“We were both looking for a supplemental income stream that required minimal start-up and was flexible with our current employment, but mostly looking for a way to justify our own growing designer dress collection,” Ms Thurn said.

The Volte’s Kellie Hush said the business was experiencing a spike in rentals during the Spring Racing carnival, with hundreds discovering the “beauty of renting.”

Many women are expected to be renting their dressing instead of spending thousands on purchasing. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

The Volte has become a prime site for women to put their clothes up for rent. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Designer dresses from Scanlan Theodore, Oroton Rebecca Vallance and Zimmerman that retail from $400 up to $1750 are up for rent on the site from $115.

“You can also have a lot of fun experimenting with a look you may consider too risky to buy and only wear once,” Ms Hush said.

“Fashion is all about fun and feeling good and The Volte is in the business of spreading that joy sustainability.”

“We have a Sonya Moda dress that has been rented 53 times, saving the equivalent of 159 trees. If 53 people had bought the dress new rather than renting it, the equivalent carbon emissions would be 11,236 kilograms, and the water usage would be 1628 litres.”

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Originally published as No more buying: The renting spree fuelling Sydney’s Spring Carnival