Rent the Runway, a website which lets consumers rent designer clothing and accessories à la carte or through regular subscriptions, has recently partnered with Amazon in a quest for growth and profitability.
Hundreds of items from the company’s “pre-loved” collection, including clothes from more than 35 brands such as Tibi and Kate Spade, can now be purchased directly through Amazon via a special Rent the Runway interface.
The center of the partnership is however represented by the introduction of the so-called “Design Collective”: a collection based on existing styles from Rent the Runway’s brand partners that have been altered according to the rental platform’s customer data insights. These specific clothes are manufactured by Rent the Runway and feature the designer’s brand name on the tag. This marks, for the first time in the brand’s history, the selling of never-before-worn clothing through a third-party retailer.
Rent the runway has been struggling to turn a profit ever since the Covid pandemic cut a hole into its business. Last September, the brand laid off about a quarter of its workforce and announced a new focus on profitability. The company remains in red, recording a 2022 Q3 net loss of $36.1 million, which is nonetheless an improvement from the $87.8 million in the same period in 2021. This is proof that the losses have been steadily narrowing now that customers are back out in the world and in need for fresh outfits.
This latest move alongside Amazon has raised concerns from sustainability experts, who warn that selling new clothing shifts the rental model’s focus away from circularity and could fuel overproduction and overconsumption.
“We want to be a substitute for fast fashion and take away all of the trend-based items that you would have purchased and worn only once or twice. We’re not trying to get people to stop buying clothes; we’re trying to get them to stop buying low-quality, unsustainable, under-utilized clothing” Rent the Runway CEO and co-founder Jennifer Hyman told Vogue Business when the partnership was first announced.
The experts agree that creating better clothing can help with excess inventory and returns. By creating clothing that fits better, and that people will like for a long time, it is possible to reduce inventory – one of the main challenges faced by the industry. The fit is not just a constant frustration, but a driver for returns and of the key reasons clothes can remain unused.
By entering into this challenge of creating new clothing, Rent the Runway commits to evaluating properly factors such as material selection, chemicals usage, durability, energy source, and treatment of workers involved in the manufacturing.
This is where the biggest oxymoron about the partnership comes to surface:
How can a sustainability brand like Rent the Runway choose Amazon, with its questionable production volumes and working conditions, as a partner?
“Of all the companies for anyone to choose to work with on a sustainability mission, Amazon would genuinely be at the bottom of the list. For me, they are the antithesis of what circularity and sustainability are about,” says fair fashion campaigner Venetia La Manna. “Their whole business model is about overconsumption and super-quick turnaround.”
Rent the Runway says the goal is to bring resale to Amazon’s vast audience and steer consumers away from fast fashion. The brand points out that the largest part of fashion’s carbon footprint is from production: through rental and resale it is possible to produce less – this is what the partnership claims to be about.
Amazon has also responded to the criticism by saying that employees have the choice to join a union and that it’s invested $7 billion on improvements for conditions of drivers worldwide. A spokesperson for the brand claims: “Since 2015, we’ve reduced the weight of packaging per shipment by 38% and eliminated the use of more than 1.5 million tons of packaging materials. Additionally, in 2021, we reduced plastic packaging weight per shipment by over 7%. We will continue to reinvent how products are shipped for the good of customers and the planet.”
This is a crucial move on their side too, allowing the retail giant to offer high-end fashion while also dabbling in another area – fashion resale – without having to invest in spinning up a resale marketplace of its own.
Sustainability advocates remain unconvinced about Rent the Runway’s ability to shift consumption habits away from fast fashion, given the role speed plays in shaping Amazon’s business model.
Overall, the newly-launched partnership leaves a few unresolved questions:
Is Rent the Runway’s brand identity really about sustainability, or at this point in time only cares about the fastest way towards being profitable again?
Will other rental platforms like Armoire Style and Le Tote catch up on these retail partnerships? Others, such as Hurr and By Rotation have already jumped upon the band wagon.
Only time will tell what the destiny of rental platforms will be. In the meantime, what us as customers are advised to do is be more pre-cautioned against micro-trends and give more weight to idea of renting a garment, which represents an almost-perfect compromise between buying second-hand rather than brand new.
By Antonio Cavallo
References:
Howland, Daphne. “Rent the Runway Teams up with Amazon Fashion in Quest for Growth.” Retail Dive, 12 Jan. 2023, https://www.retaildive.com/news/rent-the-runway-amazon-fashion-growth/640254/.
Shoaib, Maliha. “With Amazon Tie-up, Rent the Runway Faces Sustainability Questions.” Vogue Business, 19 Jan. 2023, https://www.voguebusiness.com/sustainability/with-amazon-tie-up-rent-the-runway-faces-sustainability-questions.
Fonrougegab. “Rent the Runway to Sell Secondhand Luxury on Amazon as It Chases Profitability.” CNBC, CNBC, 12 Jan. 2023, https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/12/rent-the-runway-launches-amazon-storefront-to-sell-secondhand-luxury.html.
“Rent the Runway Launches Pre-Loved and Design Collective with Amazon Fashion.” Rent The Runway, Inc, https://investors.renttherunway.com/news-releases/news-release-details/rent-runway-launches-pre-loved-and-design-collective-amazon.
