Much was made how the Great Recession took large numbers of "aspirational" shoppers out of the market for luxury goods. People, either because of job loss or concerns over employment, just couldn't afford to shop up-market anymore.
In recent years, however, a variety of rental services, such as renttherunway.com, lifestyleforlease.com and avelle.com, have sprung up to offer consumers the option of wearing designer clothes, accessories and jewelry at prices they can afford.
Rent the Runway, for example, offers clothing from 130 top designers at 10 to 15 percent of the retail price. Instead of plunking down thousands of dollars for a dress, consumers can wear their favorite designer fashions for a couple hundred.
Co-founder Jennifer Hyman told The New York Times back in 2009 that she got the idea for the business after watching a sister shop for a dress to attend a wedding.
"Here was this young girl who loves fashion and was willing to spend a good portion of her salary on a dress that she's only going to wear once or twice, and I thought, there has to be a solution for this," Ms. Hyman told the Times.
A RetailWire poll in November 2009 asked whether consumers were more drawn to these rental services because of price or convenience. Fifty-six percent said price was the big draw, 25 percent thought price and convenience were equally important and six percent saw convenience as most important.
"Where luxury had been exclusive, the Internet has made it a commodity,' Dudley Blossom, of LIM College, told The Associated Press. "This is fundamentally changing the way the average person is accessing luxury."