Summary

Rent the Runway allows clients to rent designer clothes for a fraction of the cost of purchasing them. From a circularity point of view, the company taps into the rental/leasing model for clothing, which enables the company to retain control over the resources (designer clothes) at the product’s end of life, but also ensures that the items are optimally used through many wear cycles rather than the typical purchasing model where customers lose interest in the item and it stays in the customer’s closet without being used. Customers are provided with many rental options and are offered a prepaid label to send the clothes back after use. Customers get to keep the items for a fixed amount of time and can extend use if needed. The platform offers a subscription model that allows customers to swap designer items based on a schedule. Although some experts criticize the rental model as harmful because of carbon emissions associated with transportation, the company offers a powerful example of how a rental clothing model could work at scale. (Source) The company is also committed to repairs and is invested in keeping clothing in circulation for a long period of time.

Story

Co-Founders Jenn Hyman and Jenny Fleiss , both of whom were pursuing their MBAs at Harvard Business School, were interested in the idea of making designer clothing more accessible to consumers when they noticed that women were spending thousands of dollars on designer clothing just to wear for a special event. The duo tested with a pop-up shop at Harvard, which was met with excitement and promise. They finally founded the company in 2009. (Source)

Pic Credit: The New York Times