TL;DR:
- Monthly clothing rental means you pay for a subscription and borrow everyday clothes (no occasion necessary!), wear them for as long as you want, then exchange them for something else. Not gala dresses. Actual clothes you'd wear on a Tuesday.
- You've maybe heard of clothing rental companies like Rent the Runway or Nuuly (both US-based), or Le Closet (France). Only a handful exist, they're mostly abroad, and the concept is still relatively new and unknown (especially in the Netherlands).
- With a monthly clothing rental membership, you can rent clothes online (shipped to your door) or borrow in person. At Dematerialized we do both: a home delivery membership anywhere in the Netherlands, and a local membership where you borrow straight from our showroom (hi, Den Bosch).
- It's for people who love having something new to wear but don't love spending so much money on clothes or trying to find the space in your closet, or cleaning out your closet and being confronted with how much stuff you own that you never actually wear.
wait, so clothing rental isn't just for special occasions?
No, it's not just for special occasions (but we understand why you'd think that!).
Clothing rental is evolving way beyond what it used to be, but we're still at a point where, when someone hears "rent clothes," their brain goes straight to a gala dress, a wedding guest outfit, or some other thing you wear once and then hang in your closet, only for it to take up (much-needed) space.
But we're not talking about occasion wear. That’s the sparkly cousin of what we’re talking about, which is the practical side of clothing rental: the secret that definitely won't stay a secret for much longer because it allows you to rent clothes you actually live in—not just the ones you wear once.
And honestly, the "worn once" problem isn't unique to gala dresses. Think about how many everyday pieces you've bought and worn maybe twice: a top you liked, jeans that seemed practical, a dress that felt like a sure thing in the fitting room. It doesn't really matter whether it's a wedding-guest outfit or a random Tuesday top. Most of us own far more clothes we hardly wear than ones we actually reach for on repeat. (Hold that thought.)
what monthly clothing rental actually is
Monthly clothing rental (also called a clothing rental subscription, a fashion rental subscription, or if you want to be fancy about it, a wardrobe rental subscription) works pretty much how it sounds. You pay a monthly membership. You choose a set number of pieces. You wear them as much as you like. When you're bored (and you will get bored, it's just how life works), you send them back and pick new ones.
That's it. No buying (unless you want to!). No trying to cram your newest impulse purchase into already overstuffed drawers. No wearing something twice and then feeling guilty about it when it inevitably ends up in the donation pile.
There aren't many of these services yet, and the ones that exist are mostly abroad. In the US there's Rent the Runway (plans start around $129 a month) and Nuuly (six items a month for $98, run by the same company behind Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters). In France there's Le Closet, around €89,99 a month for a box of six pieces. They all do the same core thing: a box shows up, you wear the stuff, you send it back, they clean it, you get new stuff. The laundry is not your problem, which honestly might be the best part.
Here's where we have some thoughts, though. Most of these companies partner with specific brands, which quietly limits what you can actually get. You're ultimately choosing from their brand deals, not from an open closet. And of the whole bunch, Le Closet is the only one you can even use from the Netherlands, and it was founded by two men. Which, for a service all about women's clothes, just seems a little odd to us. Add it up and there's a pretty obvious gap: no local, open, women-run option for the rest of us over here.
but how does renting clothes online even work
In general, when you rent clothes online, a set of (pre-selected) pieces comes to your door, you wear them, you send them back with whatever return method the service uses, and you choose your next round of items. Repeat.
Here's how it works with Dematerialized specifically. We offer two membership types: home delivery and local. With a home delivery membership, you select a set number of items per month (5 or 10) and we send them straight to your door, which means you can be a member whether or not you can physically get to our showroom. With a local membership, you borrow straight from the showroom in Den Bosch. Want to know more? Click here.
Now, the logistics, because this is the part everyone worries about way too much for something that is very low risk, high reward.
Here's how we handle it at Demat:
how do I know it'll fit?
This is the real one, but it's honestly the same gamble as ordering anything online. Except when your rented item doesn't fit, you just send it back with your other return items and get something new in its place. No waiting three weeks for a refund, no (even worse) forgotten return sitting by your front door for a month. (We wrote a whole thing about forgotten returns, actually.)
is there a minimum membership term?
Not really. You can always choose to pause or cancel your membership after the first month. The whole appeal is flexibility, so locking you in would kind of defeat it. And we only want you to be a member if you like and use the service.
is it clean?
Yes. Every item is washed, steamed or ironed, and carefully inspected between wearers. This is a very core part of the business, so if any rental company neglects to be extremely diligent about cleanliness, we can guarantee they'll be out of business before you even hear about them (hopefully).
what if I ruin it?
Normal wear happens and it's expected. A pulled thread or a small hole does not mean we're going to make you buy the item. That's baked into how rental works. None of us are prone to accidents, so it's totally fine. And if the accident is really bad, like the item is no-longer-wearable bad, then we might charge you 50% off of the resale price (which is low, we promise). But this is rare, especially if you let us know what happened.
okay…but why not just buy it
Because for most of us, buying is a tried-and-true way to turn your closet into an overflowing nightmare of impulse buys that only kind of fit. (We've written about this. We're nothing if not consistent.)
Remember that thought from earlier about occasion wear vs. everyday pieces? Here's the unsexy math behind it. Most of us only wear a small slice of what we own, and we continue to buy new things anyway. Why? Not because we need it. Because we’re bored and feel like we have nothing to wear. So the closet fills up with "everyday" pieces we wore once or twice and then quietly stopped reaching for. Buying solves boredom for about a week, and then you own the boredom permanently.
Renting solves the same boredom on a loop, and you never have to store the evidence. If you like variety (and most of us do), owning everything is the least efficient possible way to get it. Renting is just the version where the fun part stays and the clutter part leaves.
where demat comes in
Dematerialized (Demat for short) is a membership-based shared closet. You can walk into the showroom in Den Bosch (Lange Putstraat 4), borrow, wear, bring it back, and take something else. Or, if you're not in town, you can choose a home delivery membership and have pieces sent to you across the Netherlands. So renting clothes online isn't something you read about and wish existed here. It exists. It's here.
To repeat: we're a shared closet. Which is exactly what it sounds like. We have clothes that were previously loved by one woman, and now they're ready to be worn by you. We don't work with specific brands, either. Our collection is a mix of member donations and pieces we curate ourselves. And we cut the labels out when we can. Because the piece is what matters, not the name printed on the label.
And the shared part matters more than it sounds. Clothes only do any good (for you, and for the planet) if they actually get worn, and rental is the version where they get worn a lot.
So if you've been googling "monthly clothing rental" or "rent clothes for women" and keep getting a wall of US services you can't use, hi. That gap is just one of the many reasons Demat exists.
clothing rental faq
is renting clothes hygienic?
Yes. Every item is washed, steamed or ironed, and carefully inspected between wearers. Refreshing worn clothes for the next person is a core part of how rental works, not an afterthought.
how much does a clothing rental subscription cost?
It varies by service and country. For reference, in the US, Rent the Runway starts around $129/month and Nuuly is about $98/month; in France, Le Closet is around €90/month (all for a handful of items). Demat's memberships start at €25/month, with different tiers depending on how many items you want. We're not trying to price for a market, we're trying to keep a genuinely sustainable service as affordable as we possibly can.
can you rent everyday clothes monthly, not just formal wear?
Yes, and that's the whole shift. Occasion rental (renting one dress for one event) has been around forever. Monthly rental is for the regular clothes you wear when nothing special is happening. Well, there can also be something special happening, we have clothes for that too.
what's the best clothing rental service?
Depends where you live and what you want. In the US, Rent the Runway and Nuuly are strong options; in France, there's Le Closet. In the Netherlands, there's LENA, the fashion library in Amsterdam, and of course there's us: Demat, the only option in the Netherlands that offers a rental service built on a shared closet, with both a physical showroom and online rental with home delivery.
can you rent clothes online in the Netherlands?
Yes. With Demat's home delivery membership, you choose a set number of items each month (5 or 10) and we send them to your door anywhere in the Netherlands, so you don't have to live near the showroom to be a member. View your options here.
So you can, in fact, just rent clothes now. No gala required.
