Return to office and real clothes came just in time for this Seattle startup

Armoire founder Ambika Singh is standing in a sprawling new SoDo warehouse. Aisles of sequined dresses, holiday sweaters, and workwear stretch out in every direction. Her business is booming, but she’s remembering a not-so-distant past when she wasn’t sure the clothing rental startup would make it.

“We woke up every day for a few months thinking, today's the day that we have no customers left because the use case seemed really challenged,” Singh recalled.

That use case — renting clothes to professional women for a monthly subscription fee — was tested by the pandemic, when Armoire’s customers suddenly stopped going into the office. It took creativity and grit to make it through the Covid years, but now that Armoire is on the other side, it’s poised to seize a big opportunity.

More and more companies are calling their workers back to the office, in what’s expected to be a boon to downtowns and the businesses that rely on commuters. But this lesser-known Seattle startup is already seeing a boost from so-called "return-to-office" polices, driven by one employer, in particular.

RELATED: Amazon announces 5-day return-to-office plan for most employees

When Amazon started requiring employees to come into the office three days per week early last year, Armoire felt the halo effect. Business grew faster in the cities where Amazon is headquartered than any other market.

“The SeaTac area grew 150%,” Singh said. “The D.C.-area grew nearly 100%.”

Next week, Amazon will take the return-to-office mandate even further. Employees will be required to come in every day. Many expect other companies to follow suit, signaling a shift away from the work-from-anywhere culture of the pandemic.

Amazon says it wants to return to the office culture that existed before Covid: a world where most white-collar workers came into the office most days. That’s the world Armoire was built for.

Singh got the idea for Armoire when she was in grad school at MIT. She saw ambitious women, like herself, who didn’t have time to hit the mall or endlessly scroll to find a wardrobe that suited their lifestyle.

She assembled a team and began building the technology that would make Armoire possible. The company launched in 2017, renting a set number of items to customers based on their subscription tier.

When a customer is done wearing her rentals, she sends them back for new items. On the back end, Armoire's proprietary technology learns customers' preferences and customizes recommendations based on them.

“We are suiting up the working woman for all of her life's events,” Singh said. “So, we see her go to work, we see her go to events, playdates on the weekends. It's more of a lifestyle kind of experience for ambitious women in our category.”

RELATED: Could a return of workers to downtown offices rescue Seattle’s ailing budget?

Armoire launched in 2017 and saw steady growth in the early years. Then the pandemic hit. Growth stagnated, and Armoire had to furlough employees, but the startup managed to hold onto most of its customers by getting creative. Armoire added an athleisure category for the first time and began stocking products that catered more toward women working from home.

Chief Operating Officer Shefali McDermott recalled a pair of pants that Armoire was planning to return to the designer, rather than renting them out.

“They were jeans in the front, racing stripes on the side and sweats in the back,” she said. “It was a choice. And we had made the choice to return them, but then Covid hit and we were like, the ladies want these pants. We’ve got to bring them in. So we unboxed them. They all sold through.”

Today, Armoire has thousands of customers in cities across the country and just under 100 employees. It operates out of a warehouse in Seattle’s SoDo neighborhood, where around 50,000 garments are stocked at any given time. That’s less than half of Armoire’s total inventory, according to Singh.

“Most of it is out in the world being productive, bringing joy to our customers,” she said.

RELATED: Boeing asks Commercial Airplanes workers to return to office 5 days a week

The clothing rental industry is small, but growing, and Armoire stands out by targeting professional women. Singh sees competitors like Nuuly and Rent the Runway as allies, working together to create a new market and convince customers to change their relationship to clothing.

“Most of us grow up owning our clothes and maybe even placing particular value on buying something expensive,” she said. “It's kind of a cultural way of us showing our success … what we're seeing is that customers are starting to think about experience more than the value of ownership. When they choose to live in more of a rental lifestyle, they're signaling that actually the ownership of the piece is not as important to them as, perhaps, their values about protecting the planet.”

Sustainability is core to Armoire’s ethos. The company recently launched an “upcycling” program, repurposing garments that have been worn out or damaged through the rental process.

"We don't see a lot of value placed on garments," Singh said. "Thirty percent of them are ending up in the landfill having never been worn. So we're certainly not thinking, 'Wow, there was value in that thing. How can I preserve that?' I feel like that's a big part of what we're doing here that is so important."

So far, Singh has built Armoire through a combination of investor funding and revenue. But she says the business is close to turning a profit for the first time. And the return-to-office era could be the current that takes Armoire there.

“What we have proven, eight years later, is this will be a very profitable business,” Singh said. “It brings joy to our customers who are extremely loyal. We have really impressive longevity … it becomes a habit, and customers really rely on it.”