Struggling with redundancy or lower salaries, many Australian women are following in the designer footsteps of their American peers and resorting to renting designer clothes and accessories from online websites or buying them second-hand.

Recession-hit fashionistas wanting to look a million dollars without paying so much are keeping up appearances and fuelling a new industry in Australia – online fashion rentals.

Struggling with redundancy or lower salaries, many Australian women are following in the designer footsteps of their American peers and resorting to renting designer clothes and accessories from online websites or buying them second-hand.

“We have experienced a huge growth particularly in the last three months. It seems like the downturn has done wonders for business,” said Simonne Santana, founder of Love Me and Leave Me (www.lovemeandleaveme.com), the first and one of the biggest fashion-borrowing websites in Australia.

“We’ve experienced record membership intakes and rental intakes. It’s obviously a trend that people have warmed to,” she said, adding the site now has 5,000 members who can also buy used, or new, designer wear at a discount.

The site is one of seven catering to clients that range from students to professionals, and which offer clothes, shoes and handbags from coveted designers such as Prada, Louis Vuitton and Chanel at reasonable rates. A Prada dress which retails for A$1,900 ($1,600) is available for rent on Love Me and Leave Me for A$149.95 ($129) a week or A$249.95 ($215) a month.

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Tags : fashion, Prada

prada fairy bags

The Fairy Bag is an art. Crafted from the luscious deerskin leather, with most refined craftsmanship, it is worh much admiring and drooling. The soul of this bag is the illustration painted by James Jean. His comic art successfully collaborated with internationally renowned fashion house Prada to create a faerie world of fairies. . The hues are plum, black and earth vividly with a slight shimmer of the deerskin background. With fairies, nymphs on the forest glade, this bag is infused with life and spirit. The bag is designed in a simple shape with dual top handles, but looks enchanting and majestic in whole.

The designer of the bag is the head of Prada, Miuccia who is always ‘trying to find a new creativity’ and commissioned artists to do illustration for her collections. There is no doubt the Fairy Bag is a huge success. After its premiere in spring 2008, it has been redesigned into various styles such as tote, messenger, wristlet and clutch. The signature fairy prints also spread to Prada’s shoes, frocks and scarves.

Tags : Prada, Style

SEOUL — Perhaps the only Korean celebrity missing from Prada’s party Thursday night to mark the launch of the Transformer project was Kim Jong-il. But the North Korean leader, a noted film buff, no doubt would have enjoyed a soiree full of actors on the grounds of a 16th-century Korean palace. Celebrities rubbed shoulders and clinked Champagne glasses with designer Miuccia Prada and Prada’s chief executive Patrizio Bertelli.

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Tags : Prada