Some Like it Haute— and Cheap

Budget-minded entrepreneurs are utilizing the strategy of Netflix in high fashion. Now working girls can afford some of the priciest haute couture frocks by renting them on the Internet. The new mail-order service, Rent the Runway, allows shop-aholics to rent top designer fashions for a tenth of their retail cost. Rentals run as low as $50 for four days and are delivered, just like Netflix DVDs, to the customer's door, reports the New York Times.

Fashion mavens plop the duds back in a prepaid envelope to mail back. One recent customer gushed about paying $50 to wear a $500 dress to recent wedding. Co-founder Jennifer Hyman, a graduate of Harvard business school, came up with the idea after realizing her sister was "willing to spend a good portion of her salary" on a dress for a single occasion. "I thought, there has to be a solution for this," she said.
(More business stories.)