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Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.

Rental and Subscription Boxes: Which Retail Innovations Have a Future?

Rent the Runway and Stitch Fix will give updates on their turnaround efforts. That, plus what else is in store for the coming week.
Rent the Runway offers customers access to an "unlimited" closet.
Rent the Runway's revenue has surpassed pre-pandemic levels, but the company continues to operate at a loss. (Rent the Runway)

In the 2010s, investors poured hundreds of millions of dollars into start-ups that promised to reinvent how people shop for clothing. Stitch Fix and Rent the Runway were at the vanguard of one strain of this movement, popularising the idea that a subscription model could work in fashion. Though they had distinct approaches – boxes of clothes handpicked by stylists for Stitch Fix, rented luxury fashion for Rent the Runway – both held out the promise of infinite choices, delivered to customers’ doorsteps.

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