MiddCore Idea Grows to Fruition with Share To Wear Clothing Swap

In an effort to make use of the many unworn dresses at the College in an economical and sustainable way, Share to Wear, an on-campus initiative led by Linley Shaw ’17 and Charlotte ReiderSmith ’19, allows students to temporarily lend out their dresses to other students for a small rental fee of $10. Share to Wear then splits the received $10 with the lender, so all players in the exchange are benefited in some way.

Shaw and Reider-Smith conceived of their business at MiddCore, and it is now beginning to take shape on campus. The service relies on p a r t i c i p a t i o n from the Middlebury community.

Shaw explained that Share to Wear is meant to take advantage of the old and unused clothes in many students’ closets.

“Say you have 10 dresses in your closet, maybe you were anticipating formal events or just wanted to wear something nice, but you are realizing you are not wearing any of them as much as thought you would,” Shaw said. “Additionally you may have spent a lot of money on these dresses.”

Share to Wear allows you to lend out these dresses without having to completely give away the items. At any time during the process of renting or sharing, you decide you want your dress back, Share to Wear will return the piece to you free of charge, no questions asked.

In order to give a dress to Share to Wear, you can email Shaw or Reider Smith and set up a time to have the dresses picked up or to drop them off.

After the dresses are received, Shaw and Reider-Smith label each dress and hang them up on clothing racks. Every dress in Share to Wear’s inventory is photographed on a model and posted to their website and Facebook page, so students can browse the dresses at their convenience. Then on Thursdays, Share to Wear hosts pop-up shops.

At the pop-up shops, students can come peruse the collection, try on dresses, and decide to rent a dress or not. If the popup shop conflicts with your schedule, Share to Wear will also set up times to view the dresses by appointment.

Some weekends might bring in $5 for a dress lender, and other weekends maybe nothing. Shaw said last weekend her friend got lucky and made $15. Share to Wear takes time to see a return, but you can take your dress back whenever you desire.

In the summer of 2014, Shaw participated in MiddCore, Middlebury’s summer entrepreneurial program in Tahoe, CA., where the roots of “Share to Wear” were planted. After realizing her closet was full of nice, unworn dresses, Shaw thought there must be something better to do with her dresses than accumulate dust in her closet. She figured she wasn’t the only one in this situation.

This past summer, Reider-Smith participated in MiddCore as well and had a similar idea to Shaw. Reider-Smith was excited about starting a clothing rental service because she felt like she was always admiring other student’s dresses and would often borrow her friend’s clothes for formal events. Middcore allowed her to construct a solution for the need of a larger selection of formal wear in college.

At MiddCore, R e i d e r - S m i t h heard about Shaw’s initial idea and reached out to her. The pair met up in San Francisco this past summer, and, over pasta, they discussed the logistics of creating a clothing rental service on campus.

They both admitted balancing school and Share to Wear responsibilities has not been easy.

“Some weeks are harder than others,” Shaw said.

“There are times when I have a paper or a midterm, and I can’t focus on Share to Wear those days,” Reider-Smith said. “I feel like I could be working on Share to Wear every day, all day long, but there is obviously not the time for that.”

Although new issues arise daily, Shaw and Reider-Smith meet numerous times per week and are in constant contact about how to solve the many expected and unforeseen challenges that have popped up in the process of creating Share to Wear.

Shaw and Reider-Smith also met with Rent the Runway (a large scale national version of Share to Wear) in New York City during Fall Break to obtain advice on how to improve Share to Wear. They learned of the necessity of change in the mentality of renting clothes for this type of service to be successful.

“We are used to renting houses and cars, but renting clothes is still a foreign idea,” said Reider-Smith. “We need to get people to understand it as a normal behavior.”

So far the Middlebury community has been fairly receptive to Share to Wear, with over 15 dress rentals on their first weekend, and interest in the business is growing.

“It really feels successful to us when someone rents a dress who neither of us know, but heard about Share to Wear and is excited,” ReiderSmith said.

Shaw and Reider-Smith are adamant about creating an inclusive environment around their rental service. Anyone can share a dress, and anyone can rent a dress.

The Share to Wear team also aims to foster a sense of community between people sharing clothes. When they were taking photos of the clothes, they made many people wear the same dress to prove that different people with different body types can all look great in the same outfit.

Shaw and Reider-Smith are currently looking for an available working space, then they plan to update the website so rentals can be made online. Eventually they hope to create a kit that can be shared with other schools so they too can set up their own clothing rental service.