Harrods Wagers On Return Of Gatherings, Demand For Occasion Wear With Rentals

As it wagers on the return of in-person gatherings and flourishing demand for occasion wear, high-end department store retailer Harrods is collaborating with high-end rental marketplace My Wardrobe HQ, Business of Fashion reported.

Harrods will offer the stock and curation, and My Wardrobe HQ will handle promotional services in addition to logistics for the effort.

Harrods’s rental offering will be available through a pop-up in its Knightsbridge store, while it will also be available via the My Wardrobe HQ website.

The collection will encompass in excess of 1,000 pieces from the past year from designers such as Zimmermann, Roksanda, Rotate and Huishan Zhang.

Shoppers will be able to rent those items for between four and 14 days. Alternatively, they can buy the items.

Prices will span from £23 (approximately $32) for separates with a four-day rental up to as much as £400 (approximately $552) for more special gowns.

The news comes as Rent The Runway (RTR) is jumping into the resale clothing market, one of the newest companies to move into the fast-growing secondhand apparel sector.

“We think that we’ll be able to convert more people to shopping secondhand,” RTR’s Co-Founder Jennifer Hyman said, as per CNBC. “And from there, once they have the experience of buying something from us and seeing the quality, many of those people will end up converting into a rental.”

Separately, Etsy, the self-proclaimed “global marketplace for unique and creative goods,” is set to add secondhand apparel to that list, as the New York-based platform dives into retail’s hottest growth area.

In revealing the $1.6 billion purchase of the decade-old United Kingdom-based resale platform Depop, Etsy said it seeks to grow its reach into the quickly-expanding resale sector, while also getting access to a new collection of on-trend, young shoppers, 90 percent of whom are younger than age 26.

“We are simply thrilled to be adding Depop — what we believe to be the resale home for Gen Z consumers — to the Etsy family,”  Etsy CEO Josh Silverman said, as previously reported.