Rent vs Buy decisions no longer limited to real estate

I was taking a lunch break in the office earlier this week, and I overheard a bunch of the young 'uns in the team (yes, I significantly raise the average age at StyleNook!) discussing the case for renting vs buying. Now, of course, I have been having these rent vs buy discussions with my friends, peers and of course, husband for the last several years. The promised market correction never quite happens and for those of us who missed out on making real estate investments in the pre-crazy-boom era, we've been priced out of this space for the last several years. We are still renting and don't seem to have any near future indicators to buy - it just doesn't make economic sense.

Now, I'm used to these discussions, but I was a bit surprised to overhear this chatter in a group where average age must be 24! I wondered "Isn't it a bit early to start worrying about the renting vs buying equation?" I thought I'll join the conversation and share some of my wisdom!

I quickly learned that this was a completely new kind of rent vs buy discussion. These super bright and extremely savvy boys and girls were discussing the rent vs buy decisions for clothing and accessories - especially with the festive and wedding season around the corner. There was a heated debate going on around a recent purchase for a Rs.3500 dress, which was a simple and structured piece (from the StyleNook repository, of course), but the same girl was refusing to buy a festive outfit to wear to a Diwali party. The girl, let's call her Neha, made some solid arguments and instead of imparting wisdom, I walked away wiser!

I may not do a great job of summarizing her passion and belief, but I'll give it a shot here:

• Not only can you not repeat an outfit with the same set of people, but you cannot repeat the same outfit ever! Social media is the boss, and just because I wore this lehenga to my best friend's wedding in Nagpur, it doesn't meant my friends in Mumbai and Delhi and even Minneapolis haven't seen me in this one! My facebook/insta feed is full of awesome poses of me and my girlfriends. And this will now stay online forever. So repeating outfits is not an option. 
• Given the social media footprint, a piece cannot be repeated for the next several months and if you bring it out that much later, the season has faded and fashion has changed. You're now stuck with a white elephant outfit that you spent a bomb on but never wore again!
• Neha loves the idea of wearing designer wear but simply cannot afford to buy the pieces. Renting, apparently is another ball game all together! She can rent a Rs.1 lakh lehenga for Rs.20K and grab all the right kind of attention at the wedding (and on social media) and can just send it all back once she's done.
• Neha, lives in a metro like Mumbai where getting an apartment is hard enough and hence prefers to rent festive wear considering the amount of wardrobe space she gets to save!
• Neha, on the other hand, without batting an eyelid had bought a really simple but beautiful navy blue dress from one of our favorite vendors The Label Life for Rs.3500. And this is where she was having a heated debate with her friend. Her argument was that "I will wear this dress several times a year. I will have the ability to style it in a few different ways. Plus it is the perfect formal dress to be worn to client meetings - simply add a jacket or scarf.  
• As a true blooded millennial, Neha believes in living a minimalistic vs a consumption-led lifestyle. She only shops mindfully and always measures the wearability quotient out of her purchases - the higher the wearability quotient, the more she is willing to spend

This was resounding logic and made oodles of sense to me even as I pictured by beautiful kanjiwarams, sitting muslin-wrapped to be worn once every 2 years, or worse - the several lehengas I acquired around my wedding/engagement period that are just sitting in the closet. I spend more time and money maintaining them and they are of course, super low on wearability quotient.

Compare that to the staples in my wardrobe that I can totally "vasoolofy" and appeal to the gujju/baniya thinking that prevails in our household!

I recently met one of the folks from the rental startup space in India and they mentioned that even brides have started renting out clothes and there is a months' long waitlist for most of these pieces. And men are coming on board equally. Occasion wear is where they see the most traction.

This makes perfect sense to me - rent your wow pieces when you need to wow! But for the good stuff that you will wear every day, invest in a higher quallity and understand the importance of styling!

Nonetheless, I walked away much wiser from that chat. Have any of you experienced this line of thinking ?