Renting Costumes: Personal list of Tips, Tricks and Nightmares

Part of being a cosplayer, you get a wee bit too passionate and end up looking at your drawer or garage piling up with your past costume creations and wonder if you can make something out of it.  Unlike commissions where you would have to build a costume from ground up according to the desires and tastes of your client, renting costumes seems a whole lot easier since its already available, and renting takes on a day or so with cash normally done on hand with no hassle of bank transfers, online transactions, credit card purchases or checks.

But renting costumes can be tricky business.  Often I would lend or rent costumes to those whom I know personally.  If you plan to rent a costume to people, here is my personal list of things i'd do before, during and after renting a costume.  I classified it into 2 categories: Casual Renting and Professional Renting.  Casual means renting/lending without the hassle of legal obligations.  Price isnt even the issue with Casual since it meant very little consequence on your part.  Professional Renting is when everything needs to be done to make sure your costume investment maintains its street value for years.