RENTING A LIFE
Designer wear, designer bags, furniture or art, rentals afford you a lifestyle you always wanted but couldn’t afford
TThe tiny room in Delhi’s Okhla area opens out to reveal clothes racks laden with glittering garments. Glittering, because ahead of the festival season, everyone wants to wear their jewels on their sleeves and look their best in designer wear. And if you can do that without worrying about your shifting size and at a fifth of the cost of the outfit, why not? In an adjacent room, a team is hard at work, checking, folding and placing garments that need to be shipped out into black boxes lined with white tissue paper. This is the office of Stage3, an online fashion rental company founded by Sabena Puri, a Harvard Business School graduate, designer Rina Dhaka and entrepreneur Sanchit Baweja in 2016. Here, for as little as Rs 1,500, you can rent a designer outfit, be it by Gauri & Nainika or Sabyasachi, be the toast of the party and slip back into your jeans once the event is done and dusted.
According to a PwC report, the potential for growth in the sharing economy—between the five key sharing sectors (automotive, hospitality, finance, staffing and media streaming)—is huge. Approximately $14 billion in revenue was generated in 2013, a figure slated to grow to $335 billion by 2025. With people the world over choosing rental over ownership given the economic climate, the sharing economy has become a natural choice for many. Thanks to many of these novel rental models, different people can use the same products again and again without diminishing their perceived value. While brands like Uber and AirBnB have been pioneers in the sharing economy, the same rationale is now being extended to other highvalue products like furniture, designer labels, handbags and even art. With an array of apps and mobile sites opening a window to a world of shared goods and services, things that were unaffordable are suddenly up for grabs.
Here are four online services that are changing the way the sharing economy is being experienced today.
STAGE3
SERVICE Website for renting designer gowns, dresses and lehengas.
USP You can rent a look put together by a top stylist—Stage3 partners with celebrities and influencers—based on your body type and even visit the studio if you want to try an outfit before renting it. “Curation,” says founder Sabena Puri, “is one of our skill sets. Our team picks upcoming prêt collections. We believe there is a market for it.”
GENESIS OF THE BRAND Extensive travel and education are making young millennials conscious of how they look. “When you step out, every moment is a dress-up experience,” says Puri. “So buying one dress does not give you a complete experience. People want an affordable way to experience luxury styled and suited to their body type. Instead of holding on to a socially obsolete dress, they want to access beautiful clothes from top designers endorsed by a celebrity that fits them perfectly. This was the genesis of Stage3.”
HOW IT WORKS “Our brand,” says Puri, “has three functions; curation, styling and rental. Clients want an end-to-end experience, and that’s what we give them.” You can rent a garment online for three or six days after browsing online and selecting a style. Stylists, too, are available for consultations. The outfit is delivered to you after being fit to your size and altered. After use, you just need to wrap up the dress and keep it ready for pick-up. Rentals begin at Rs 1,500 and go up to about Rs 10,000 (for a Rs 1.5 lakh Sabyasachi outfit). While one may have reservations about renting something someone else has worn, the company goes that extra mile to ensure clothes are in impeccable condition when they get to you and give you an ‘almost new’ feel when you slip into them. WHAT’S POPULAR An occasion-led business, sari gowns, crop top lehen--
gas… modern versions work well and move quickly.
WHERE Available in 16 cities, among them Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune, Jaipur, Lucknow, Nagpur, Ahmedabad and Ludhiana, though currently the styling studio is available only in Delhi, as is same-day delivery. www.stage3.com ARDIZEN
SERVICE This subscription-based art rental service can help give a space a new look every now and then.
USP You can rent art for four to six months, send it back and get new work instead, ideal for corporates looking to update their office look frequently. The service is happy to customise and advise people on what best suits a space, making the process of discovering new art and artists relatively risk-free.
GENESIS OF THE BRAND An engineering graduate from BITS Pilani, Sharavati Vatti would frequently come across artists looking to sell their work. While there were many new artists, nobody knew about them and people had limited awareness about art as it was considered a rich man’s preserve. “In the initial days,” says Vatti, “it was very challenging and I wanted to learn more, but realised it was a maze. So rental became a way of creating awareness about art within the country and Ardizen was launched in 2016.” Today, both consumers and artists are more forthcoming to be showcased.
HOW IT WORKS Vatti usually rents to corporate clients as their needs are diverse and they are more reliable than individuals. Clients usually give them a theme and with artists already clubbed under various themes, they are given recommendations. The emphasis is on showcasing upcoming and mid-level artists who have the potential of making it big but whose work is not yet popular. Ardizen gets to keep 55 per cent of the rentals while the remainder goes to the artist. Customers are expected to pay a monthly rental of approximately Rs 3,000, depending on the artist, kind of painting, its size, number of paintings being rented etc. Corporate clients pay much more (almost Rs 50,000). The company currently has about 800 artists on its website and there are more than 15 parameters you can choose from and filter before zeroing in on the artist of your choice. www.ardizen.com FURLENCO
SERVICE Rent furniture at a fifth of cost and return it when you are bored of the look or are moving cities.
USP Ideal for single people and those who have to frequently shift homes. To stay competitive and ahead of others in the business, the brand offers free deep cleaning services, a damage waiver of up to Rs 10,000 and also the option of swapping one furniture package for another. GENESIS OF THE BRAND Spying a growing market for rental furniture in big cities, Furlenco was founded in
2012 to make furnishing homes easy. India’s first online furniture rental company, based in Bengaluru, it offers complete furnishing solutions for homes. This includes matching soft furnishings and home decor, and free relocation within and across cities. The company operates in Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and Pune.
HOW IT WORKS According to founder &CEO Ajith Mohan Karimpana, “With a monthly rental subscription model, furnishing a home is now quick, easy and affordable. As for the furniture itself, Furlenco provides premium furniture. The service includes free doorstep delivery in 72 hours and installation of the ordered package.”
KEY CHALLENGES A first-of-its-kind concept when it was launched, getting people interested in the idea and, more importantly, getting investors to believe in the longevity and success of this concept was one of the most difficult challenges Furlenco had to face initially. However, after five years and furnishing more than 25,000 homes, Furlenco is steadily growing. www.furlenco.com
PRENDO
SERVICE Feeding your designer bag fetish, Prendo lets you rent the swishest of handbags, totes and clutches.
USP Instead of parking money in one luxury bag, you get to choose from a range of luxury bags. According to the brand’s founder Jashank Bhandari, “We remove the risk of buying something and help people break into the world of luxury. The person who would buy, say, a Louis Vuitton bag and the one who rents it has a completely different mindset; we are focusing on the latter.”
GENESIS OF THE BRAND Prendo in Italian means pick up or grab. Bhandari, the brain behind the venture, was doing an MBA in the US in 2012 when he noticed that the sharing economy space was growing and brands like Uber and AirBnB were raking it in. He says, “I wanted to be in this space where people were valuing experience over ownership. Rent a Runway started by two Harvard girls had got a lot of traction so I studied their model and came back to India. My wife was in the fashion space and she brought in the fashion element. The luxury sector excited me so this was an intersection of everything I liked.”
HOW IT WORKS Just log on, select a brand and style and pick from a range of bags. You can rent for three, 10 or 30 days. The bags are treated in advance so that spills etc. can be minimised as leather cannot be cleaned once it becomes patchy. Most of the bags cost between Rs 25,000 and Rs 2 lakh and one needs to pay 4-5 per cent of the bag plus a security deposit to rent it.
KEY CHALLENGES “Sourcing,” says Bhandari, “is a challenge as things change very fast and we have to stay abreast of trends and seasons to get the right deals and pass them on.”
BRANDS ON RENT Furla, Coach, YSL, Alexander McQueen, Miu Miu, Louis Vuitton, Gucci. www.prendo.com