Rent the Runway expands its presence, offerings.

San Francisco’s “closet in the cloud” is now at street level.

Designer fashion rental service Rent the Runway opened its first stand-alone San Francisco location Sept. 18 just off Union Square. The new space looks like a boutique: On-trend clothing and accessories from 500 designers hang among the crisp white walls and bleached wood floors. But here, as the name suggests, customers rent pieces instead of buying them.

The new Rent the Runway store boasts self-service stations that let members of its monthly subscription service — think Netflix for clothes, for $159 — check in, return rented pieces and exchange them for new items, all without interacting with a store associate. Alternatively, customers can work with in-store stylists to receive personalized recommendations, and they can still rent one-off pieces for the occasional important event, which was the company’s original model; items start at $30.

Rent the Runway chief operating officer Maureen Sullivan says the space was designed to be somewhat of a “Willy Wonka” shopping experience — like a dream closet with infinite choices. Racks are packed more tightly than one might see in a highend boutique to convey that message, and inventory can change daily to reflect the local demand (or weather).

This location is the first in Rent the Runway’s ongoing San Francisco expansion, with an even larger space slated to open here in 2019.

Rent the Runway’s first local presence opened just over two years ago on the fifth floor of Neiman Marcus as an experimental store-in-store concept using 1,800 square feet. Since then, the company’s subscription service has outgrown Neiman Marcus, Sullivan says, growing at 150 percent year-over-year and now accounting for 50 percent of total company revenue; in San Francisco, 83 percent of subscriber transactions are self-service, which became available less than five months ago.

The new store, at 2,600 square feet, will hold two times more merchandise, with brands ranging from up-and-coming designers such as Becken and Sea New York to established brands that will become available this fall such as Reformation, Philip Lim, Marc Jacobs and Victoria Beckham. The shop will stay open longer than when it was in Neiman Marcus and have more flexibility to host events.

San Francisco is the third-largest market for the brand’s subscription service (after New York City and Washington, D.C.), and almost half of San Francisco subscribers used the Neiman Marcus store. Unsurprisingly, local customers tend to be early adopters who gravitate toward casual separates and jackets, Sullivan says. Even denim, she says, is a favorite rental item.

At a time when every event or vacation is an Instagram-friendly photo-opportunity, it’s easy to understand how the popularity of a service that obviates repeat-wears has accelerated. “Everyone is a celebrity of their own life,” Sullivan says. “We are publishing more of our life now, and people see this as a hack or a life unlock.”

Rent the Runway, 434 Post St., 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday.

Rent the Runway Rent the Runway opened its first stand-alone location on Sept. 18 after two years within Neiman Marcus.