By: Andrew Dinh
Fast fashion and online shopping dominate the modern apparel industry. The younger generation’s environmental awareness and need to have a new outfit for each social media post led to the creation of a new niche within the fashion industry. Much like how Uber and AirBnB offer a rental service for people to share their cars and homes, clothing rental allows people and retailers to share their inventory.
Since 2009, online services like Trunk Club and Rent the Runway have sent boxes of designer clothing home to consumers on a periodic basis. Newfound demand for a rental clothing service, instead of sticking to fast fashion, stems from increasing consumer concerns with sustainability and a desire to present a new outfit in every social media post.
Now, mall retailer Urban Outfitters plans to launch its own clothing rental service, Nuuly. The service faces competition from other shops like Express, American Eagle, and Ann Taylor, stores which currently offer the service through CaaStle, an online platform for retailers to coordinate rentals.
For $88 a month, Nuuly offers the luxury of picking six new clothing items per month from brands available like Anthropologie and Free People. These six pieces will be mailed in a reusable bag with pre-paid postage. This can eliminate the worry of repeating outfits by ensuring that there are new clothes to rotate through every thirty days. If consumers end up falling in love with a certain clothing article they rented, they have the option to purchase the item and keep it.
For those who may have concerns about the concept of wearing other people’s clothes, rental services like Nuuly and American Eagle ensure that each garment is thoroughly dry-cleaned before being redistributed. Ironically, however, this leads to greater environmental sustainability concerns because dry-cleaning itself is extremely resource intensive.
Clothing rental is just the latest to emerge in a world progressively moving toward sustainable business models. Fast fashion retailers like H&M and Forever 21 will face competition from these new services. Combining modern youth’s concern with fashion and the environment results in this newfound evolution in the clothing industry.
Information was taken from www.wallstreetjournal.com