The Bijou Dress is an absolute classic LBD from Forever Unique party dresses UK. We keep coming back to this designer as the quality and cut is just right for a short party dress. Rent the luxe party dress from GMD and team it with heels then you’re ready for your event! The bow on the front with crystals, decorates and compliments this dress perfectly. Fun and flirty, it can be a prom dress but would also look great as an evening cocktail dress during happy hour or a fancy dinner. Very versatile and full of possibilities. Such a cute look from such a fab designer! We love the name Bijou, as it really represents the jewel aspects of the dress and the intricate detail that adds such a fab sparkle to the designer little black dress.

Maddi Howell celebrates luxurious evening dresses with unique details for all occasions – to hire from Girl Meets Dress. 

The weekends remaining before Christmas and New Year are flying by; but before we start think about our well-intentioned resolutions for 2014 (and begin to anticipate competition for the cross trainer in January), we should embrace the revival of luxury and throw caution to the wind – dressed, of course, in beautiful evening dresses for dinners and gatherings and celebrations which fill up the calendar in December.  There is a distinctly indulgent feel to these evening dresses available from Girl Meets Dress, and there’s nothing like dressing to impress to cheer up a cold winter’s night; it may be dreary outside, but every girl can shine in these glad rags.

This beautiful long evening dress, the Chloe Dress Navy by Nelly Eve, will give you perfect proportions and elegance.

The flattering detail of the embellished back hint at a Grecian style and the oh-so-slightly seductive slit at the leg adds drama and subtly reveals your assets with all the body skimming perks of a long designer evening gown. For me this is an ideal dinner dress or ball gown possible to wear for £109 through GMD evening dress hire. I’ll be checking out the other evening dresses to hire by Nelly Eve’s NLY! I can’t resist picking out the sparkly NLY Jules Dress, again with a wonderful cut at the back – the perfect dinner dress waiting to become midnight’s party dress.

If you’d rather sparkle in a long sleeved evening dress at your dinner party, the Carol Dress by Valerie is a fetching shape, mid-length and looks lovely with or without tights. The unique feature of decorative stones at the neckline makes this piece really stand out and can allow you to be understated with jewellery. A dress to hire for £59 at a fraction of the retail price, it is a cocktail dress, a party dress and a dinner dress all in one. Valerie’s design does all the work for you already, especially if you need to slip into something after work or if you’ve been busy cooking up a festive feast. It is guaranteed to stand out later at the bar or in the club AND is versatile enough to be paired with ankle boots for a more casual look, pumps for comfort or your favourite pair of heels! What more could a girl want?

So it’s down to the final buyer’s birthday dress!

The top three were so hard to choose, but here is my final choice. Drum roll please…!

The NLY Luna Dress Black!

Now I know that this is not a generic clubbing dress but I wanted an option that was a little different, a little out there. Pairing the luna black, with converse or even normal trainers, and lots of gold jewellery, I can make the dress casual but quirky enough for my birthday. I might plait my hair and add red lipstick for a real out of there look.

What I love about this dress is that it could easily be worn as a ball gown, but that’s not the direction I’m going for. I can definitely see myself on the dance floor twirling around and fluffing out the skirt’s layers in time to the beat while my gold hoops swing away!

According to a survey one in six women admit to purchasing an item of clothing from a store, wearing it, and then returning it to the shop for a full refund.  An increasing number of women are turning to this new craze, labelled “Wardrobing”, for their fashion fixes.

Anita Naik, consumer editor at VoucherCodes.co.uk, who conducted the research, said: ‘Our research reveals that over a quarter of women who admit to ‘wardrobing’ feel guilty about it, but the pressure to look good on special occasions makes it feel like the only option for some to look good on a budget.’

So what about renting? Designer dress hire service Girl Meets Dress allows you to rent designer pieces with 95% off the retail price. “Rental is a way for consumers to extract all the value with none of the headaches,” says Anna Bance, co-founder of Girl Meets Dress, “women can now easily wear more relevant, trend led, time-sensitive fashions, while continuing to invest and buy only in those classic pieces which will stand the test of time.”  Wardrobing is a product of our ‘fast-fashion culture’, where trends are popular for a short time then become outdated and therefore worthless.

The proliferation of social media, including Facebook has a lot to do with an increasing social pressure which has heightened the growing desire for people to make a statement with their fashion and for a women’s inherent desire not to wear the same dress twice. As Daisy Buchanan mentions in a recent article for the Guardian, “Everywhere we turn, we’re being told to look different, to look better, to have the right outfit for every mood and occasion. We’re judged by our peers and our families, and now on Facebook and Instagram. People you haven’t seen since school can berate you for recycling a bridesmaid’s dress and wearing it to a christening.”

The survey also reveals that those who earn a living in the entertainment industry are the most prolific “Wardrobers” with over a third, 39 per cent, admitting to it. “Celebrities have always been borrowing dresses for special events,” says co-founder Anna, “and now that everyone is a mini-celebrity in their own world, all women can have access to this luxury.”

Anna admits wardrobing once before, which was one of the contributing reasons for founding Girl Meets Dress. Before the business was set up there was no other way to only wear an item of clothing once without then committing the act of wardrobing. Now you are able to wear a different dress for every occasion without the heart-stopping moments at the returns till. Renting not only decreases the alarming amount of clothing waste but helps to combat the alarming levels of debt. Girl Meets Dress takes away the risk-factor of Wardrobing, any snags or spillages which could potentially spoil a well laid refund plan are taken care of as the service is in charge of all the dry cleaning.

Although “Wardrobing” may be a way for women to look glamourous on a night out, in America this is called “Return Fraud”, and losing the US retail industry around $9.6 to $14.8 billion per year. Stores like ASOS have already taken steps to prevent this by marking some clothes with red tags to determine if the item has been worn or not. Other high street retailers have even required staff working in stores to “sniff” clothing that has been returned to make sure the item has not been worn.

As Lucy Osborne writes for the Daily Mail “If we could try more and buy less, we’d end up with so many items we truly loved that it would curb our desire for a pointless purchase just because it’s new.”