Rent the Runway Subscription Review – A Tall Girl’s Guide

I’m 6’2 and recently tried a Rent the Runway Subscription for a month. I received 9 items with a retail value of $4773 for a monthly fee of $93. Unique and/or designer items can be practically impossible to find for tall women. RTR has gobs of such items but do they work for us tall ladies? I’m here to give my honest Rent the Runway Subscription Review so you can decide whether RTR is right for you! If you want to sign up, my link will get you 50% off your first month!

This post is all about my Rent the Runway Subscription Review.

TLDR: Here are the highlights of my Tall Girl Guide to the Rent the Runway subscription service in case you don’t have time to read the whole thing

• Don’t spend too much time “favoriting” items before signing up because they might not be available to rent
• Choose the 10 item plan to get the most of out the subscription
• Read reviews from woman of a similar height and size to figure out sizing!
• Check back often to see if an item you really want has become available. Inventory is constant changing as people return items.
• Try a subscription for a month and then pause it until you need it again
• Formal gowns sometimes come in long sizes
• You can buy items from the subscription at a discount

My Honest Rent the Runway Subscription Review

I have toyed with the idea of trying Rent the Runway for a long time but was always hesitant because I wasn’t sure that any of the non-tall clothing would work for my tall frame. When I realized I had several events to dress up for in August AND I received a great introductory offer to the subscription, I decided to try the 10 item plan. Here are my honest thoughts about what I loved and didn’t love about the Rent the Runway Subscription.

Types of RTR Subscription Plans

Rent the Runway offer 3 types of subscription plans (pricing is as of 11/16/2024):

1. 5 Item Limited Closet Access – Try 5 items per month up to a $350 Value for $89 for the first month and then $94 thereafter – Honestly, you’d be pretty limited on this plan since most of the RTR items are designer items and priced more in the $400s-$500s and up.
2. 5 Item Full Close Access – Try 5 items per month from RTR’s whole collection for $95 for the first month and then $119 thereafter
3. 10 Item Full Closet Access – Try 10 items per month (5 items at at time) from RTR’s whole collection for $95 for the first month and then $119 thereafter. This is the plan I chose!

How Does a Rent the Runway Subscription Work?

Let’s get down to the nitty gritty. Once you’ve chosen your plan, you then browse the app or website and select your items. Your items will arrive on hangers with plastic protectors in a large garment bag like the one I’m holding in the photo. This is also the bag that you will return your items in. Inside is a pre-printed, pre-paid label that you put in a plastic sleeve of the bag for super easy returns.

OK…your items arrive and you excitedly take them out and try them on. Now what?! Well of course you wear the ones that fit and set aside the ones that don’t. If you’ve signed up for a 10 item plan, you return the items you no longer need by indicating on the app or website that you’re sending them back.

You then place the items in the garment bag and either schedule a pick-up or dropping them at a UPS store. I dropped mine at the UPS store. You do not need to worry about dry cleaning or washing the items. RTR takes care of that. So nice, right?

Pro Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your RTR Subscription

So far, I have only done an RTR subscription for one month and currently have it paused. If I have another month where I need several unique outfits, I will unpause my subscription and do it again. Here are my top tips for getting the most out of your RTR subscription

1. Don’t spend too much time “favoriting” items BEFORE you sign up for a subscription. I unfortunately did this and then when I actually signed up, most of those items weren’t available. For example, out of the 83 items I had marked as favs, only 28 were available when I signed up. I was super bummed because I had my heart set on a couple of dresses but they never showed as available during the month that I rented. Lesson learned!
2. For the 10 item subscription, you will not receive all 10 items at the same time. I TOTALLY envisioned myself having 10 beautiful items to try one and choose from in my closet at the same time. Then I realized…NOPE…you get 2 shipments of up to 5 items. For example, my first shipment was 5 items. Only 2 of the 5 dresses worked BUT I actually bought one of them (the orange dress) and I wanted to keep one of them longer. Buying an item frees up another spot for your next shipment so this meant that I returned 3 dresses, bought 1 and then received 4 dresses in my next shipment.
3. Check back often to see if an item you really want has become available. I can’t lie…I got a little obsessive about this for my second shipment. I realized that inventory was literally ALWAYS changing. Sometimes at night while watching TV, I’d be sitting there refreshing my app every 2 minutes to see if anything had changed availability-wise. Was that healthy and a good use of my time? Probably not. Oops!
4. Read the reviews carefully! The reviews are sooo helpful regarding fit, length etc. When you create an RTR profile, you enter your height and what size you normally wear. When you go to the reviews section for an item, the system defaults to “Like Me” which means you’ll normally see reviews from people of a similar height and/or size first. I LOVE this! It’s nice to not have to hunt through all of the reviews to hear what other tall girls thought of the item. I noticed it doesn’t work perfectly since it’s combining both the height and size factors (and not just height alone) so you may still have to hunt a bit to find the tall reviews but everyone’s height is easily identifiable in their reviews so it’s easy to pick out the fellow tall ladies.
5. Try a subscription for a month with the intro offer and then pause your membership until you need it again. If you’re a fan of the subscription program and want to keep using it, I love that for you. But if you just want to try it for a month with the intro offer (if you use my link, you’ll get 40% off your first month!), you can then pause your subscription until you want to use it again. This is what I did. I know I have several events to attend in June/July and another military ball to go to in May so I will likely be reactivating my subscription for that timeframe. Another thing to keep in mind…when I hit pause, RTR offered me a discount off my next month but I ignored this and paused it anyways. However, if you want to do TWO months in a row, this might be a good strategy.
6. Formal gowns sometimes come in long. I have yet to try a full length formal gown from RTR but noticed when I was browsing that several of them come in both regular AND long.
7. You can buy items from the subscription at a discount. Another perk of subscribing is being able to buy the items in your subscription (or items for sale on the RTR website) at a deep discount. For example, I bought the orange polka dot dress for $48 and the retail value is listed as $250.

If you want to try an RTR subscription, click here for 50% off your first month!

Rent the Runway Subscription Review: What Worked and What Didn’t

OK…now it’s show and tell time. Here are photos of the dresses that fit well and that I actually wore. Funny thing – I actually caught some crud from my daughter and missed most of the events that I had ordered the dresses for because I was so poorly. Story of my life! Sigh! BUT we were still able to go to the beautiful Omni Homestead Resort in Hot Springs, VA and that’s where I wore most of the items.

First, here is the dress I bought! While it lists the retail value as $250 on the RTR website, I only paid $48! I love that it’s 100% cotton and feels high quality.

This Ulla Johnson dress was my fav! It was so danged cute and if you’re a fan of the new show Nobody Wants This, you may have noticed Noah’s soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend wearing it in the first episode. I wore out to a bday dinner with friends for my husband and also to dinner at the resort.

My second fav was this gorgeous Derek Lam Collective cotton shirt dress. I am 100% a sucker for a fabulous shirt dress. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the the cuff on the sleeves buttoned over my fluffy arms so I wore them unbuttoned which probably looked a bit wonky but oh well. I wore it at the resort, on a little outing we did while staying at the resort and also on a couple of work days because it looked fabulous on Zoom.

While I liked this shirt dress (especially the puff sleeve detail, it was probably my least favorite of all the dresses I wore. I felt a bit dowdy in it to be honest. I probably should’ve worn heels to jazz it up a bit. It was still a nice dress though.

Now for a couple of the fails. Out of the 9 dresses I got, I didn’t wear 4 of them because they didn’t fit well. I’m not going to lie…this was frustrating and a bit disheartening.

Granted, I’ve always been a hard fit as far as dresses are concerned because my hips are quite a bit bigger than my upper body so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. But still…I spent eons reading reviews and thought I was being careful in the sizes I chose. It still ended up being a total crap shoot whether stuff was going to fit or not

For example, I sized up and got a size 12 in this Marchessa Notte dress thinking I’d be golden and I could BARELY get the dress on! It was super tight and unflattering in my midriff area and hips. Sigh!

This Shoshana dress in size 10 was also too small and unflattering.

Would I do a Rent the Runway Subscription Again?

I probably would do another month or 2 of RTR again here and there. I felt like a million bucks in the dresses that did fit and it was really fun to wear some designer clothing. Just today, I received a 40% off code to resume my membership which is mighty tempting since I may have a couple of things to dress up for in December. But I also have stuff in my closet I can wear.

I will definitely do it again if I go to a military ball again in May. Being able to try on 5-10 formal gowns would be wonderful!

Overall, my Rent the Runway Subscription experience was a mixed bag which I kind of expected. Not only am I super tall but, like I said earlier, I’m just a hard fit in general. I don’t regret trying it though!

That’s a wrap on my Rent the Runway Subscription Review. I hope you found it helpful and feel free to let me know in the comments if you have any questions!

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