Gwynnie Bee Fashion Rental Subscription Review
Fashion subscriptions are exploding like crazy right now, so I figured I would jump on the train and give one a try. Enter Gwynnie Bee. Gwynnie Bee was previously exclusively for women sizes 10-32 but has now expanded down to a size zero. The website has a massive selection of dresses, pants, skirts, blouses, and outerwear, that you can “closet”, or put on your list to be sent to you. You can’t pick which ones you get at a time, but some clothes can be “prioritized” to be sent first. The options start at $59 a month for two items out at a time, and they send new ones as soon as you send the first two back.
Heading in, I had some concerns. Would this be worth the money? $60+ a month is a lot to spend on clothes I don’t even get to keep. Would the clothes fit? As a size 10 or 12, clothes can be hit or miss on sizing without being able to try them on.
My Experience
I ordered my first box on the 7th of the month. I put 12 dresses in my “closet” and prioritized three. They arrived seven days later. The two dresses I ordered, like I was worried about, had some fit issues. I had used the “size estimator” function on the site and had ordered accordingly. It had recommended I size up for the Catherine by Catherine Melandrino dress, and size down for the Tocca dress. Fits on both were off. The Tocca dress was, predictable, too tight. The Catherine dress was too loose. They were also both very heavy. The weight of both dresses was really striking.
All the items are available for purchase at a discount, if you want to keep them, but you can only buy clothes that you’ve tried. Some issues with this – even with a coupon, and the “used” clothing discount, the Catherine dress was still $45 more than I could find it for on other websites. So, shopping for clothes based on Gwynnie Bee…not a bargain. Same went for the Tocca dress. Full price, it’s $255. Gwynnie Bee says that you can buy it for only $140, and I saw it for sale elsewhere for $120. Yeah, it takes work to hunt down dresses on the internet, but they’re not giving me good offers here.
Not Worth the Value (For Me)
I have some feelings about the overall value of this subscription. For me, I’m usually buying from lower-cost stores or using heavy discounts online, so I’m not usually spending $60+ a month on clothing. Don’t get me wrong, I buy a lot of clothes, but they are things that I enjoy wearing and wear again and again, so the cost per wear is low. For Gwynnie Bee, I’m only getting a maximum of 8 items per month, if I wear each one only once and then mail them back right away. That works out to $7.38 per wear, per item of clothing. Or…I could buy a $60 dress and wear it 8 times. The cost per wear is the same.
On that note, I’m only picking out dresses based on a few reviews (both dresses had less than 4 reviews each) and guessing on size. I’ve never worn anything from either value. After the dresses came, I wouldn’t have bought either of these if I had tried them on in store, regardless of price.
Who Should Get This
I think that there are some people who would really benefit from this. If you’re already spending $100+ a month on clothing, then this is for you. You get the exciting feeling of new clothes, but n that case, you’ll be saving money. I think that if you’re gaining or losing weight, this could also work for you. If you’re in the process of losing sizes, you might not want to buy a whole new wardrobe that won’t fit in a few months, so this would work well. I think if you’re pregnant, or gaining some sizes, a lot of the dresses will still work well, and again, no commitment on buying a wardrobe that won’t fit for long. Lastly, if you’re the kind of person who only wears the same outfit once, you’re set.
I think that it's also important to note, since I live in Montana, I can only really get 4-6 garments a month. If you lived somewhere closer to a major city, maybe that experience would be different.
I did really like the opportunity to try on some brands I had been interested in ordering from, but was unsure about sizing. Two of the dresses I received in my first month were from brands I was scouting online. It was nice to be able to “test drive” and find the finesse on the sizes before I bought something for real.
The Verdict
This isn’t for me, and I cancelled. It’s not worth the money, and the sizing is tricky at best. There are some people that I think this would work for, but I’m not one of them. The dresses are in pristine condition, and I thought the system of picking, sending, wearing, returning was easy, but I wouldn’t have purchased any of the dresses.
Have you tried Gwynnie Bee? Let me know!