Firms Find Niche Renting Maternity Wear

Six months pregnant, Lacey Rawson was having a tough time finding clothes that fit her and the professional image she needed to project at work.

She tried maternity stores, but prices were too high. She shopped at consignment shops, but choices were limited.

Then she discovered Maternity Rental Successwear Inc., run by Barbara Brown out of her Nashville home--one of a handful of businesses around the country that rent out maternity clothing.

Rawson was able to choose from a large supply of suits, dresses and other business clothing that looked nice and didn’t cost a fortune.

She pays $20 to $25 a month to rent each outfit, a far cry from the $400 she paid for one suit.

“You do want to look nice for the time when you’re pregnant because you are large, but you want to feel good about yourself,” said Rawson, who learned of Maternity Rental after spotting a business card on a local YMCA bulletin board. “The rental idea is just marvelous.”

Brown, 42, says she first got the idea for the business when she was pregnant with her first child about nine years ago.

“I couldn’t find any suits, and dresses were horrendously expensive,” she recalled. “And they all had puffy sleeves and big bows--not exactly professional image wear.”

She decided she would try to rent.

Brown worked as marketing director for a company that manufactured uniforms, which were rented to gas stations and other businesses. And she knew there were stores that rented tuxedos, wedding gowns and party dresses, but she couldn’t find a place that rented maternity clothes.

When Brown quit work to stay home with her child, the thought of creating such a business was in the back of her mind. But she didn’t get started until about 1 1/2 years ago--when her second child was in kindergarten.

She buys new clothing from a women’s wear market in Atlanta. She carries more than 60 styles in at least three sizes each, as well as petite and extra large. She rents an average of 25 outfits a month, and reports that sales have doubled over last year.

When a client calls, Brown visits her office or home with photo samples and finds out the styles the woman likes. Then Brown goes to the client’s home loaded with clothing for her to choose from.

Lisa Gruchot wishes she had known about rentals when she was pregnant with her first child two years ago and working for a Chicago office products company.

She says she spent at least $2,800 on maternity clothes she wore to the office, buying a new outfit each time she outgrew one.

“But you could rent them for the size you are at the time, and not only that, you wouldn’t get so bored wearing the same clothes over and over,” she said, outside a Dan Howard’s Maternity store in Nashville.

She’s now a stay-at-home mom five-months pregnant with her second child, so she has no use for all those business clothes. She just shipped a box of them to her best friend in Chicago.

The Maternity Closet of St. Paul, Minn., offers catalogs of clothing for sale and for rent on its Web site. There are photos of the outfits, along with written descriptions, designers’ names, sizes available, prices and a phone number to call to place an order.

Susan Weir of Overland Park, Kan., also has a Web site for her company, Professional Expectations, but customers cannot order items online. They must visit her store.

She does offer online consulting services about starting maternity-clothing rental business. She said she gets several calls per week, including inquiries from Puerto Rico, Ireland and the Bahamas.

Weir, who once worked for Sprint Corp. in its corporate headquarters in Kansas City, Mo., says professional-looking maternity clothes are important now that more women are climbing the corporate ladder and having children later in life.

“If you’re having a kid when you’re just starting out [in a career] . . . you don’t need these kinds of clothes. You can get away with wearing your husband’s shirts and the next size up in leggings,” she said.

“But when you get further down the line in your career, not only are you used to wearing nicer clothes, you need to maintain that image.

“I worked long and hard to get to a particular level. I didn’t want to blow it by wearing bows and ruffles. I wanted people to take me seriously.”