The kids can wear the hell out of some outfits, and then barely get one wear out of others before they grow out of them. You can get a ton of free stuff to cover the first few months, and then at a year, you're caught off guard and heading to Old Navy to buy the world's most criminally cheap t-shirts and branded crap. So kids' clothing, you just never know.
So I could see how Plum, a start-up that wants to rent you just the right baby clothes each month, makes some sense. It basically turns the merry-go-round of hand-me-downs from cousins and siblings and in-laws and friends and neighbors into a subscription business. You pay roughly a quarter to a third of the cost of an outfit per month, and rotate them, Netflix-style, as you need to.
I mean, yeah, it's ridiculous; there really are too many baby clothes floating around out there, and for what? It's a waste of money and resources and whatnot, and eco-friendly laundering and donating to foster care and whatever. The idea of renting clothes still seems weird to me. The craziest thing since Plum TV.
Did you know that Rev. Al Sharpton claimed he didn't own his suits, that they're all the property of his ministry/non-profit/tax dodge/whatever so that he could deduct them? Or actually, so that he could avoid paying a court-ordered judgment in a defamation lawsuit? That's what this makes me think of. Plum wants to be the Netflix of baby clothes, but they're the Al Sharpton of baby clothes instead.
Plum Gear: clothes you never outgrow [plumgear.com via treehugger thanks dt hero dt]
Roy Cohn used to do that same tax dodge too to make himself judgement proof, that's probably all those two had in common.
There's another company that tries to do this with baby toys:
http://babyplays.com/
I thought I'd read about it on your site at some point, but can't seem to find any old posts on it.
"Stains or spills. Don't worry. We donate anything in less than perfect condition to foster care."
That right there turned me off. Because yeah... foster kids don't deserve the "perfect" things in life.
No thanks. I'd rather buy clothes for my kids and go donate NEW things or the things that are still perfect when we're done with them to those who need them more... not those who can afford to spend $16 or more per month to "borrow" them and give their less than perfect leftovers to in the end.
What are we supposed to do with our stained kids' clothes? Throw them away? I donate mine also.