Toronto-based rax is pushing its peer-to-peer “shared wardrobe” concept into its next phase of growth, using a marketplace model that avoids owning inventory while connecting lenders and borrowers through a mobile app. Founded by Marley Alles, the platform positions itself as a practical alternative to one-time fashion purchases, particularly in categories like wedding guest dressing, bridal looks, and other occasion-driven apparel where utilization is low and closet turnover is high.
“We are the only peer-to-peer clothing rental app in Canada, so kind of like a Poshmark or a Depop, but for rentals,” Alles said. “What we’ve done is we don’t own any of the inventory, so we’re just sort of the marketplace that connects that person that wants that item.”
The company’s near-term strategy blends product growth with in-person community building in Toronto, while also laying groundwork for international expansion and longer-term enterprise opportunities with fashion brands. That multi-track approach is central to the Rax expansion narrative, as the company works to scale adoption in a category that still requires consumer education.
The modern clothing rental market has often struggled with the high cost of inventory ownership, cleaning, warehousing, and reverse logistics. Alles believes rax’s marketplace structure is a different path to scale, because it shifts garment ownership and care decisions back to users, while rax earns revenue through transaction fees.
“We take a 20% commission on each transaction,” she said. “It’s free to use, we just take a commission.”
From a retail industry perspective, the bet is that technology, trust systems, and local density can make rentals feel as normal as resale, especially among younger shoppers who already participate in secondhand, thrifting, and social-driven commerce.
From Wedding Guest Dresses to “Airbnb for Fashion”
While rax supports multiple categories, Alles said the strongest performance is in formalwear, particularly summer wedding season.
“Our core is like that wedding guest dress,” she said. “Summer’s our biggest season because I had like five weddings this summer.”
That customer behaviour underpins the “cost per wear” argument, but rax is leaning into a more explicit financial framing to motivate lending. Alles described it as “Airbnb for fashion,” a way to treat high-ticket pieces as revenue-generating assets rather than dormant closet items.
“Even though I’m spending $900 on a dress, it’s actually an investment,” she said. “I could potentially make more than I even spent on it by renting it out a few times.”
She added that quality garments can cycle repeatedly if cared for properly, and that user pricing can flex based on demand and availability. “If it’s out of stock or super popular, they can actually get away with renting it out for pretty close to retail value, which is pretty shocking,” she said.
Building Trust, Reviews, and Real-World Meetups
As with other peer-to-peer marketplaces, trust is a core adoption barrier. Rax uses profiles, social handles, and reviews to reduce perceived risk for both sides of the transaction.
“Trust is the number one thing,” Alles said. “We have a review system so you can review the item, had a great experience with the lender, or didn’t.”
Garment care is handled by the lender after return, which is a notable operational decision that keeps the platform lightweight while allowing lenders to bake cleaning costs into pricing. “Garment care is on the lender,” she said. “They can clean it the way they want.”
The business also leans on in-person engagement as a growth lever, particularly because the concept still needs explanation for many consumers. “We try to do a lot of in-person activations because it is such a new idea,” Alles said. “People do have a lot of questions about how it works.”
Creator Closet Sale Strategy Becomes a Repeatable Growth Channel
Rax is also scaling through community-led commerce, including pop-ups that turn creators’ closets into physical retail moments. The company is hosting a creator closet sale in Toronto on December 21, running from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at 484 Spadina Avenue, featuring five influencers with a combined reach described as 1.3 million in the original pitch. Rax’s Instagram promotion for the event has also positioned it as an RSVP-driven activation. instagram.com
For rax, these creator-driven events do two jobs. They convert influencer audiences into app users, and they give the company a live environment to explain the process, solve friction in real time, and strengthen community trust.
Influencers are also structurally well suited to the model. “They’re attending a ton of events wanting to wear things new to every event,” Alles said. “They get sent a ton of clothes, so their closet is literally bursting out the seams.”
Early Traction, Grants, and Visibility Fuel the Next Stage
Rax’s growth story includes a mix of bootstrapping, public visibility, and external validation. Alles has been recognized as a Corporate Knights 30 Under 30 honouree, with the publication listing her as founder of Rax in its youth sustainability leaders coverage. The company has also been profiled through Queen’s Smith School of Business alumni entrepreneurship coverage.
In addition, Alles won a $40,000 Coors Legacy Lift grant, which has been reported by Canadian marketing trade coverage and amplified through industry channels.
Most recently, TechCrunch coverage has tied rax’s momentum to its U.S. push, including reporting that the company won “top consumer pitch” at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 and is expanding into the American market.
For a Canadian retail-tech startup, that kind of international exposure can help unlock partnerships, hiring, and investor conversations, even if the operational work still comes down to building density market by market.
U.S. Launch Brings More Competition, and More Ceiling
Alles described the U.S. as both a bigger opportunity and a tougher arena. “We’re slowly launching into the U.S.,” she said. “It’s a little bit more of a competitive market there.”
That expansion matters strategically because peer-to-peer marketplaces benefit from scale effects. More users and more listings can tighten search relevance, improve availability, and reduce the friction of finding the right size, colour, and occasion. Within the app, rax supports filtering by size, colour, category, and event type. Alles said the platform also supports use cases beyond formalwear, including maternity categories where the need is temporary.
Longer-Term: Rental as a Service for Brands
While the immediate focus is user growth and geographic expansion, Alles also flagged a longer-term B2B path that would place rax closer to traditional fashion players instead of purely competing against them.
“We eventually want to partner with fashion brands to power their rental,” she said, pointing to sustainability pressure and the need to “close the loop.” The concept, as described, is that rax would provide the technology layer and user behaviour insight, while brands would gain a path into rental without building the infrastructure from scratch.
If executed, that approach could become a meaningful extension of the Rax expansion strategy, positioning the company not only as a consumer marketplace, but also as a rental enablement partner for brands navigating circularity, regulation, and shifting consumer attitudes around access versus ownership.
