Designers today are responsible for more than just creating garments. They manage sourcing, manufacturing, marketing, and customer relationships. But when it comes to long-term monetization, they are still limited by a traditional model that relies on one-time sales.

In the current market, designers typically sell their pieces once, with no participation in the value those items continue to generate over time. Peer-to-peer resale and rental platforms allow individuals to resell or rent garments for additional revenue, but these transactions bypass the original creator entirely. The result is that many designers are excluded from the long-term commercial life of their own products.

As consumer demand shifts toward access over ownership, this gap is becoming both more visible and more urgent to address.

Rental’s Growth—and the Participation Gap

Fashion rental is not a new concept, but its growth in recent years has signaled a more permanent shift in consumer behavior. According to Technavio, the global fashion rental market is projected to grow by $1.16 billion over the next four years. Platforms like Nuuly have scaled rapidly, growing from launch in 2019 to over 200,000 active subscribers in 2024.

At the same time, peer-to-peer rental platforms such as Tulerie and Pickle are gaining traction among Gen Z, further validating demand for rental access. However, despite this momentum, most small and independent designers remain absent from the rental economy.

The reason is not a lack of interest or customer demand. It is a structural issue: the current rental infrastructure is not built for small-scale operations.

The Current Landscape: Limited Options for Independent Designers

Today’s rental market is fragmented, and the solutions that exist are primarily designed for enterprise-level brands or individual consumers. There are two primary models:

Large Platform Integration: Services like Rent the Runway require brands to wholesale inventory or enter into consignment agreements. This often results in brands losing control over pricing, customer relationships, and how their products are presented. These platforms operate more as distribution channels and do not allow designers to build rental into their own brand strategy.
Peer-to-Peer Marketplaces: Platforms like Tulerie allow individuals to rent their personal wardrobes to other consumers. While this model proves there is demand for short-term access to fashion, it cuts designers and retailers out of the revenue stream entirely. Designers have no visibility into how their garments are being used, priced, or promoted.

This creates a gap in the market. There is no widely accessible rental infrastructure that allows independent designers to maintain ownership, control the customer experience, and test rental in a low-risk environment. While resale platforms have become more accessible, often through easy-to-integrate Shopify apps, rental remains operationally complex and resource-intensive.

The Barriers: Why Rental Remains Difficult to Adopt

There are two key reasons why rental has not scaled among smaller retailers and designers:

1. High Onboarding Complexity
Large rental platforms typically require detailed product onboarding processes. Rent the Runway, for example, requires brands to submit lookbooks, coordinate shipping using branded packaging, and comply with strict scheduling and processing guidelines. In most cases, the platform controls all customer interaction and determines how products are positioned.

This stands in contrast to resale platforms, which allow a brand or user to list an item and begin earning revenue within hours. In rental, the entry process is significantly longer and involves more operational handoffs and uncertainty.

2. Lack of Flexible, Scalable Tools
Existing rental solutions are often built for narrow use cases. Generation Tux, for example, specializes in men's formalwear and cannot support brands outside of that category. Vivrelle focuses on luxury handbags and only purchases inventory outright. These systems do not accommodate designers offering diverse categories such as casualwear, outerwear, or size-inclusive collections.

This specialization creates inefficiencies. A designer offering both men’s streetwear and women’s formalwear would need multiple rental systems to accommodate each category, making it difficult to scale incrementally. There is no standard platform for testing rental in a single category and expanding over time.

What Independent Designers Actually Need

The current landscape offers two extremes: either give up control by outsourcing to a platform, or build a custom rental system from scratch. Neither option is feasible for most independent designers or small retailers.

To participate in the rental economy, designers need a B2B2C solution that integrates seamlessly with their existing brand. This includes maintaining control over pricing, inventory, and customer relationships while having the flexibility to start with a small selection of pieces and scale based on real performance data. The ideal system should also support a range of product types and customer segments to accommodate diverse business models.

These are the gaps that current platforms do not address.

A Path Forward: Looks for Lease (L4L)

Looks for Lease (L4L) has designed the technology to close this gap. It enables designers and retailers to launch and manage their own rental programs, using their existing inventory and brand infrastructure.

The platform allows for gradual entry into rental. Designers can begin by renting a few select items and scale based on actual customer response. L4L integrates with existing operations and does not require wholesale commitments or third-party customer servicing.

Key features of the platform include:

A centralized system for listing, processing, and managing rentals
Data analytics to track item performance and customer usage
Flexibility to support different inventory types and business models

Because L4L is not category-specific, designers can rent multiple product types, such as dresses, coats, and accessories, within the same system. This creates opportunities for designers to test demand and expand based on what works, without investing in multiple solutions.

The Long-Term Value of Rental

Rental also creates long-term financial benefits. A single item rented multiple times can generate significantly more revenue than a one-time sale. For example, a $200 dress rented three times per month at $69 can generate over $7,000 in three years.

In addition, designers maintain full control over pricing and brand positioning. Rental also helps address sustainability concerns by extending the useful life of garments and reducing the need for new production. According to Urban Outfitters' financial reports, up to 71% of their total expenses go toward manufacturing. The more times a product is used, the more value is extracted from that initial investment.

Rental also provides actionable insights. Designers can use platform data to understand which pieces are in high demand, which sizes perform best, and how often items are re-rented. This information can guide future production decisions, improve inventory planning, and reduce overstock.

Conclusion

The rental market is growing, but the infrastructure to support independent designers has not kept pace. As a result, many creators are missing out on significant long-term value. Peer-to-peer platforms prove demand but exclude the brand. Large-scale rental platforms offer scale but remove control.

L4L offers a third option: technology built for designers who want to rent on their own terms, retain customer relationships, and grow based on actual performance. For designers and retailers seeking to adapt to a changing market while maintaining their brand identity, rental is no longer a niche experiment, but a strategic investment in long-term value.

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