LAUNE x Allie Reeves
If the best nights start in someone else’s bedroom trying on outfits, Allie Reeves turned that ritual into a business. Brooklyn-born and oldest-daughter to her core, Allie co-founded BARO (pronounced “borrow”) to recreate the magic of sharing closets — but smarter.
BARO is a peer-to-peer rental platform, where women can lend pieces they love and borrow the ones they’ve been eyeing. It’s about wearing the $1,500 dress without the $1,500 regret, making back your investment, and cutting down on fashion waste without sacrificing style. The LAUNE? Think ultimate girls’ night energy: communal, confident, and a little indulgent. Below, Allie shares BARO’s origin story, sustainability ethos, and how it all works.
1. Tell me about yourself and BARO. How was it created and what inspired the name?
I was born and raised in Brooklyn and am the oldest of four siblings (I think that’s important to note because I’m a firm believer that birth order affects your personality and if you’re an oldest daughter you’ll agree). I went to Syracuse University and studied TV and Film writing, worked in the industry for a bit on shows like Project Runway and Watch What Happens Live before transitioning into PR and creative strategy. I worked on the agency side during the beginning of my career and got to work with some really cool companies like Tinder, Quinn, and Penguin Random House, as well as some early stage startups. I then took a role as the Director of Marketing at a consumer startup in the events space where I was for about a year and a half before leaving to work on BARO full time.
BARO (pronounced “borrow” and also the answer to your question about the name inspiration), really stemmed out of a personal pain point in our own lives and wanting to solve a problem that we were feeling: it’s extremely expensive and wasteful to buy a new outfit for every single event—especially weddings. We also had expensive things in our own closets we didn’t wear on a regular basis, but didn’t want to sell. My co-founder Zoe and I are best friends from college, and we were reflecting on how during that time it had been so easy to share each other's clothes. We wanted to recreate that experience and allow women to share their closets with each other in a safe and secure way, while also allowing them to save money on things they were only going to wear once and make money back on investment pieces that were just hanging in their closets.
2. How does BARO work?
BARO works very similarly to resale platforms that you probably use—Depop, Poshmark, eBay, etc. You download the BARO app, make a profile, and then you can start listing your own pieces and browsing things from other women’s closets. Our initial focus has been women’s formalwear, so pieces that tend to be really expensive but don’t get a lot of wear. Over the past couple of months, we’ve seen a natural expansion into other categories like bags and higher end tops and bottoms, which has been really exciting. All of the communication and transactions happen within the app, users set their own prices and if they accept a rental order they receive a pre-paid shipping label to send out the item to the borrower. The borrower also receives a label to ship it back when the rental is complete.
3. What is the LAUNE (mood) of BARO?
Something we talk about all the time is that we want BARO to feel like the most fun night girls night out you’ve ever had. There is something so innately feminine, girly, and community oriented about sharing clothes, and we really want that feeling to shine through the BARO product and content. We think the coolest girls share—whether that be clothes, recommendations, information, or advice—we very much believe that (almost) everything is better when shared.
4. What inspires you?
Smart people who are passionate about what they’re doing. I’m someone who very much feeds off of other people’s energy, so if you’re excited about it I’m excited about it. Through BARO, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting so many different founders and people who are working on really interesting things in so many different areas. I think there’s nothing cooler than someone who is extremely knowledgeable about something I have no idea about and can teach me something new.
5. Sustainability is often part of the rental conversation — how does BARO approach it in a way that feels realistic and wearable?
Sustainability is one of the many reasons we wanted to start BARO, the amount of waste and trash within the fashion industry is truthfully pretty gross. Something interesting we learned though was that while a majority of people care about sustainability in theory, their actions and purchases aren’t reflective of that. You can say you care about climate change or the fashion waste issue, but maybe you still shop at Zara. A lot of paradoxes exist there, and I don’t think it's the fault of the consumer. The quality of products has significantly gone down over the last few decades while prices have gone up, driven by corporations who want to make as much money off us as possible. Meanwhile, most people are struggling to keep up with monthly bills, so it makes sense they’re not going out and buying a $1,500 dress for their event.
Our hope with BARO, though, is to show people they can still wear that $1,500 dress if they rent it from another woman who has already made the investment. At the same time, the woman who made the investment can make money back on her purchase, therefore off-setting the upfront cost. Over time, we hope that more people will look at their closets as investments and transition away from buying fast fashion altogether.
6. What are some of the brands available on BARO? How do you decide what pieces make it into BARO’s rotation?
You can list any brand on BARO, as long as it is not one of the fast fashion brands that we’ve gated (e.g. Zara, SheIn, Amazon, etc.). The beauty of a peer-to-peer model versus a B2C model (like Rent the Runway), is that we don’t have to choose what pieces make it on to BARO, our users decide that for us. Some of our most popular contemporary brands are Zimmermann, Staud, Aje, and Alexis, but we also have some amazing vintage designer pieces from brands like Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, or Versace. If you have something beautiful hanging in your closet that you’d like to share with our community and make money back on, list it on BARO!
7. What are you looking forward to in 2026?
Truthfully, 2025 felt like a slog, so it already feels like there are a lot of good things on the horizon in 2026. I’m looking forward to getting out of my comfort zone more often, spending more time with my friends and family, and picking up (and sticking with) a hobby or two.
8. What’s next for BARO?
A lot of exciting things! We’re currently building out our local pick up and drop off feature so that users will be able to borrow and lend pieces with other women in their immediate communities. Right now, all transactions happen through shipping—even if you’re in the same city as the other person. We’re hopeful that this will make it easier and faster for women to share closets, especially because I know that a lot of people (myself included) are procrastinators and leave things to the last minute. We’re also in the process of rethinking our content strategy, and we’re actually looking for a content intern to help us with that. If that’s you, shoot me an email!
Rapid Fire:
1. Describe your style in three words.
Classic, Feminine, Sculptural.
2. Favorite band?
Waxahatchee, specifically the Tigers Blood album. Could listen to that album front to back, on repeat, forever.
3. If you could only wear one designer for the rest of your life, who would it be?
4. Dream collab?
Something with Mary Beth Barone, I love her.
5. What are three staple items that every closet should have?
A good pair of jeans, a good pair of black trousers, and something that makes you feel really hot every time you wear it.
6. Favorite place?
Prospect Park
7. Favorite restaurant in New York?
You know, I’m not really a restaurant person. I mean that in the sense of, I love going to restaurants but I’m never the one picking the place. I’m very much a creature of habit so once I find a place I like in my neighborhood, it becomes my favorite by default. With that in mind I would probably say Miss Ada in Fort Greene.
8. Favorite drinks spot in New York?
I’ve been loving Doppelgänger in Clinton Hill—great drinks, great outdoor space, and all of the tables turn into crokinole boards (sort of like tabletop shuffleboard).
9. Favorite style icon?
Lee Radziwill.
10. Favorite movie?
I don’t have a favorite movie, but I have a favorite movie genre which is psychological thriller. Some favorites are: Parasite, Barbarian, Eyes Wide Shut, Vivarium, Us—could go on and on.
11. What are you loving right now?
I’ve been loving beaded details, specifically on the ends of sleeves or in interesting places on a piece of clothing. Also, vintage fashion magazines. I’ve been curating snippets of them over the past few months and it’s been fun to see the evolution (and cyclicality) of fashion over the past couple decades through that lens. Last thing, I’ve honestly been loving learning about astrology? If you want to analyze my birth chart, let me know.
LAUNE x Allie Reeves
LAUNE x Allie Reeves
