You're invited to a party and you need a great dress. There are beautiful clothes hanging in your closet but you don't want to wear one of those outfits because you're bored with them. So what's a girl to do? Former high-fashion model Lona Alia Duncan is hoping that in the future women will consider Style Lend (www.stylelend.com). This Internet startup has secured Y Combinator funding and is fully functional in its beta phase. Operating out of San Francisco and soon to launch in New York City, too, the premise behind Style Lend is simple. It's a peer to peer community marketplace where fashionable women have access to the infinite dream closet. Join for free and then rent the perfect designer dress for a week at a time. Prices start at $15. Site members can either rent their dresses out themselves or have Style Lend do it for them. Most of the dresses at the website have famous designer labels but a few are just pretty frocks that would look great on any woman. Duncan said that her idea came about because she has loads of nice dresses in her closet that she's worn a few times each. But in this age of Facebook and photo tagging it's difficult to wear the same outfit again and again without people wondering about your financial circumstances. An individual dress might cost over a thousand dollars but no one thinks of that after they've seen you wear it five times in a month. That leaves women with difficult choices - either wear cheap garments, get a reputation as a penny pincher, or sell the clothes second hand at a massive loss. “Style Lend helps women stretch their clothing budget,” said Duncan. “If you buy an amazing dress, you don't have to feel guilty. Wear it a few times yourself and then rent it to others. It's still yours to wear again if you want.” A woman living in or travelling to San Francisco or New York City will be able to actually try on dresses before renting. Members of the Style Lend community who live further afield can have dresses shipped to them for any occasion. All the dresses are insured so if there's a spill or ripped seam, there's no need to cry. Duncan advised that a dress can be rented and dry cleaned at least seven times with no diminishing of its “newness.” Right now in the early days of the Style Lend community, many of the available dresses are in very small sizes. Duncan comment that this is because it's mostly fashion models who have opened their closets to the site. By 2016, the goal is for millions of women everywhere to join, so there are millions of dresses to rent in every size. Style Lend is the third startup for Duncan. She said that her entrepreneurial spirit has grown since childhood. “Both of my parents were entrepreneurs and when I was ten years old I was involved in my parent's business,” said Duncan. “They wanted to teach us the value of money, so they sent us out in the street to sell things. I sold everything from brooms to salt. In Albanian in 1990 the regime was changing and in the casual marketplace you sold anything you could get your hands on. I loved doing that and I liked having my own money.” Duncan's modeling career began at the age of 16, taking her from the runway shows and catalogs of Versace, Guess and Levis, to a run as a Cover Girl cosmetics' “cover girl.” But she decided to leave her glamorous fashion life behind, earned her BA and MBA from George Washington Business School and set off on the road to owning her own business. “To be an entrepreneur you need money and resources. It's hard as a woman when you're looking for those resources in Silicon Valley where most of the investors are men and they tend to be attracted to the male entrepreneurs who are trying to solve problems that men understand,” said Duncan. “What happens then is that there is underrepresentation in solving women specific problems. At the incubator Y Combinator, they focus on the idea that successful entrepreneurs make solving their own problems the foundation of their businesses. We need more financially successful women to invest in incubators and angel funds so we can encourage more women with good ideas to start their own businesses.” Women in the Kingdom can help make Style Lend a success. Saudi women have closets full of gently-used designer gowns and not a clue about what to do with them. Duncan suggests you contact her through Style Lend. She'll be happy to help you start renting them out, freeing up your closet space and putting some funds back in your fashion budget.
