By Melissa Heckscher, Correspondent
Lauren Gregor’s Redondo Beach garage is filled to the brim with baby clothes: rompers on racks, onesies in boxes, tiny T-shirts tucked onto shelves.
They’re not for her kids. They’re not for sale.
They’re for rent. The entrepreneurial mother of two is the founder of Rent a Romper, a subscription service for preemie-sized to 5T that lets parents swap out gently used clothes as their kids grow.
“I came up with this idea when my kids were 3 and 5,” said Gregor, 41, who has spent most of her professional life in education and technology but began Rent a Romper after seeing the need for it in her own life.
“I was just spending so much time shopping for my kids,” Gregor said. “And a week later, they would grow out of the thing that I had just bought.”
She thought about the problem constantly, Gregor said, wondering: “How can we make this better?”
Fueled by the desire to reduce waste and discourage wanton consumption, Gregor founded Rent a Romper in 2020. Today, she has a nationwide reach and was recently named a finalist in The UPS Store Small Biz Challenge, a contest that recognizes small businesses across the country.
“We have customers who have been with us from the very beginning, and now they have a membership for their second baby,” she said. “They don’t even buy clothes anymore; they just rent.”
How it works
The idea is simple: Parents fill out a short survey on the Rent a Romper website, listing their preferences, desired sizes, needed items and their child’s favorite things. (Do they like unicorns? Or dinosaurs? Buttons or zippers?)
Rent a Romper, which has four employees, then curates each box to meet the family’s needs. Customers can keep and use the clothes as long as they want and return them when they’re ready.
The selection runs the gamut from basics such as pajamas, pants and T-shirts to specialty items like formal wear, snowsuits and Halloween costumes.
Each shipment contains either seven or 15 pieces per box, and families can choose high-end brands and organic clothes (Babysprouts Co., Clover Baby and Kids, Colored Organics, and Peasy) or opt for basic brands and essentials (Carters and Old Navy). Pricing ranges from $32 to $72 a month.
Of course, kids aren’t neatniks, and Gregor knows the clothes won’t always come back in perfect condition. But that’s OK.
The company has a “No Stain/No Damage Penalty” policy. That means Rent a Romper handles the stain removal. If they can’t, they include gently stained items in a “Messy Play Grab Bag,” a reduced-cost box made for painting classes and muddy days.
For Redondo Beach resident Shanna Mohan, a Rent a Romper customer since her toddler was 3 months old, using the service is a great way to get winter clothes for when she visits family on the East Coast.
“It’s not cold here, so I’m not going to go and buy a winter coat,” Mohan said. “I just send (Rent a Romper) a message when I do my swap, saying, ‘In this one, can you add in a coat?’”
Other customers do it for the environmental impact. Especially since even the delivery box itself is sustainable; it’s made of nylon and zips up, and can be reused.
“I care a lot about being environmentally conscious,” said Brooklyn, New York, resident Holly Dowell, who has used Rent a Romper since her son was born prematurely five months ago. “Renting clothes is an excellent way to do that.”
A sustainable option
Consider this: Newborns grow about 9.5 inches in the first year, according to Mayo Clinic. That’s the equivalent of moving up a size every 10 weeks or so. Toddlers, in general, grow out of their clothes about every six months. That’s a lot of shopping.
And a lot of waste.
The fashion industry, in fact, is responsible for more carbon emissions annually than all international flights and maritime shipping combined, according to a report by Princeton University.
And the average U.S. consumer throws away 81.5 pounds of clothing every year, according to a study from earth.org.
Children’s clothes, in particular, have a short shelf life. In the United Kingdom, for example, about a third of parents surveyed by the enviromental group Hubbub admitted to simply tossing outgrown clothing into the trash.
Consequently, the clothing rental market is becoming increasingly popular with consumers who want to reduce their carbon footprint.
The industry — which includes companies like Rent the Runway, Stitchfix and Nuuly — is expected to increase its revenue from $1.77 billion this year to $2.47 billion by 2029, according to market data analysis company Mordar Intelligence.
“When we first started, renting kids clothes was a very foreign concept,” Gregor said, “but now, many more of our customers are renting clothes for themselves.”
Another environmental bonus: Rent a Romper also works as an afterlife for customers’ existing baby clothes, accepting used clothes in exchange for rental credit. What the company doesn’t use gets donated to charity.
While the pandemic made for a rocky start, Rent a Romper now has more than 400 members, more than 10,000 Instagram followers — and an inventory of more than 30,000 items.
Gregor recently had to kick her husband’s meager collection of stuff out of the garage because there’s no room left, she said.
One of her favorite things about seeing her company grow, Gregor said, is the sustainability impact she is having on families. Rent a Romper, she said, is significantly reducing the amount of clothing families consume and extending the life of each article of clothing.
“We are not only saving (families) time,” Gregor said. “But when I speak with customers, they tell me how they don’t buy clothes anymore.”
