Simpler, more sustainable and fully circular.

Buying furniture new doesn’t work. It makes no sense, never has, but we do it.

Take the couch, for example. Hideously expensive, it’s value evaporates the minute we bring it home, where it slowly deteriorates while looking more dated with every day that passes. Finally, at the end of its life, or when we just can’t stand the sight of it anymore, we have to figure out how to get rid of it. At that point it becomes part of the unconscionable 20 billion pounds of furniture added to landfills every year. Mind you, that was the scenario before our current supply-chain issues pushed the wait times for new sofas out to nine months.

That last factor is what’s led to the rise of rental furniture, a model that’s always made sense but has had trouble shaking its Rent-a-Center past — until now. New companies like Feather, Fernish, Conjure, ZZ Driggs and Oliver Space offer up-market rental furniture that’s on par with what you’d find at West Elm or CB2. They serve relatively affluent urban consumers who, especially since the pandemic, have enthusiastically opted into a more efficient and sustainable way of furnishing their homes. Many are renters who move frequently, others are homeowners who need furniture temporarily – perhaps while waiting nine months for a couch. But all are players in the circular economy, which seeks to refurbish, redistribute and reuse durable goods and is looking more and more like the future of the home industry. As a bonus, in an era where furniture is increasingly a form of fashion, the subscription model allows consumers to update their furniture whenever they want.