The company allows users to rent, subscribe, or buy designer apparel and accessories. It achieves this with its network of partnerships with hundreds of top designers and managing the crucial but complicated logistics in-house. It offers its partnered brands sophisticated analytics about potential customers in return for lower prices on designer garments.

Rent the Runway is now focused on diversifying revenue streams while reducing its costs. Its recent partnership with Amazon is an example of this new direction: while it will use this chanel sell to clothes previously rented through its platform, it will for the first time be selling new clothes based off of rental items modified in line with market data.

While moves such as this may well shift Rent the Runway towards profitability, it also risks undercutting the company's central message of sustainability and supporting the circular economy. The company believes that by creating better quality clothing it will nonetheless be aiding in the fight against fast fashion. Time will tell if this move helps or hinders the sustainability movement, but it is likely to boost Rent the Runway's bottom line regardless.