When I first got Instagram nearly a decade ago, my feed was like a virtual Vogue center spread, full of gorgeous images of leather jackets and the new “It” bag. But as I’ve gotten older and invested more time and money in my home, it has begun to look a lot more like Architectural Digest or Elle Decor. These days, I drool over gorgeous armchairs draped with cashmere throw blankets and lambskin pillows.
Yes, you heard that right. Rent the Runway and West Elm are betting that you’ll be down with bringing throw pillows into your home that another customer (and her dog) snuggled on. Rent the Runway subscribers will be able to rent these bundles as one of their rotating spots in their RTR Unlimited (which costs $159 a month) or RTR Update (which costs $89 a month) membership programs. Customers can hold on to these home bundles for as long as they would like, from weeks to months. If they want to buy the pieces, they can purchase them at a discounted price.
Jennifer Hyman, cofounder and CEO of Rent the Runway, believes renting home products will be particularly valuable for millennial and gen-Z consumers who move frequently and don’t want to buy home decor that they may have to get rid of when they leave their apartment. “Their lives are very dynamic, and they’re constantly moving as they enter new life stages,” Hyman says. “The home category seems very well-suited for the circular economy.”
Rent the Runway helped to normalize the idea of renting everyday objects that were once only available for purchase. And it also created a lucrative business model. Unlike other retailers, Rent the Runway can purchase a garment once but continue to make a profit on it as it is rented repeatedly. Last year, the company was valued at almost $800 million, and it has been profitable for several years now. “Our goal has always been to create a new model for dynamic ownership,” says Hyman. “It creates a new relationship between a customer and a thing that they don’t need to own forever, whether that thing is a piece of clothing or home decor.”
But Rent the Runway is also an expert at the logistics of rental–at taking an item that one customer has used and making it look new for the next customer. It makes sense for Rent the Runway to begin with home textiles, since it has the largest dry cleaning operations in the world, and has a lot of experience making used fabric look new.
Hyman says that this partnership is only the beginning of a broader goal of making more products and product categories available through a rental model. Over the past three years, she has found that customers are willing to rent almost anything Rent the Runway puts before them. At first, the company stocked gowns that women tended to only wear a few times to fancy events, but these days, some of the company’s most frequently rented items are things that women wear every day, like T-shirts and professional outfits.
So why not not duvets and pillowcases? “We literally find that there is nothing [our customer] won’t try as long as the products are design forward and high-quality,” says Hyman.