{"id":306311,"date":"2026-07-27T07:33:05","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T07:33:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/306311\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T07:33:05","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T07:33:05","slug":"nyc-women-are-making-up-to-30000-per-month-on-pickle-by-renting-out-their-closets-to-strangers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/306311\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC women are making up to $30,000 per month on Pickle by renting out their closets to strangers"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Kat Friday, a revenue operations employee at financial technology firm Marqeta, first came across Pickle<\/a> on TikTok in February 2025, she didn\u2019t think opening a storefront on the app would ever amount to much.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not into fashion one bit. I wear all black everywhere,\u201d Friday tells Fortune. She initially opened the app to scan for a few outfits for an upcoming vacation. But as she scrolled through Pickle\u2019s more than 500,000<\/a> listings, Friday realized she also could use the platform to rent out an expensive camera sitting on a shelf collecting dust in her apartment.<\/p>\n

In November 2025, she listed a Canon<\/a> G7 X camera, which normally retails for around $1,000, for $150 a week, and waited for a response. The rentals came almost immediately.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never use this thing and people are dying for them,\u201d Friday says. \u201cI immediately got a bunch of rentals for it, and I was like, \u2018okay, I\u2019m gonna list some other stuff.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The listing\u2019s success inspired Friday to add more items to her Pickle offerings, and she started uploading some shirts and dresses she barely wore. As her storefront grew, Friday even started purchasing \u201ctrendy\u201d items in a variety of sizes, what she referred to as \u201cinvestment pieces\u201d to rent out on Pickle.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember after renting out that camera a couple times, I was like, \u2018Holy sh-t, there\u2019s a market for this,\u2019\u201d Friday tells Fortune. \u201cI looked at some of the other top lenders in the New York area and surely I could just buy these clothes.\u201d<\/p>\n

After just eight months, Friday has already become one of the platform\u2019s top lenders, and considers herself to be a \u201chigh-volume\u201d business. She earns roughly $7,000 per month from her Pickle listings, and rents out a 100-square foot-storage unit to keep her growing inventory organized. The workload has increased so much she\u2019s currently looking to hire her first employee while she balances a full-time role with fulfilling about 25 to 30 orders a week.<\/p>\n

To make her listings shine, Friday says she regularly lugs a portable power station to the storage unit to power steamers and irons after work, and is considering renting a studio apartment with other sellers to run their stores.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always things to be cleaned,\u201d Friday says. \u201cThere\u2019s always orders to be packed. There\u2019s always orders to be accepted.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Pickle\u2019s rise<\/p>\n

Pickle, a peer-to-peer luxury clothing rental service founded in 2021 by Brian McMahon and Julia O\u2019Mara, offers its predominantly Gen Z and millennial customers access to luxury clothing<\/a> and accessories at a fraction of the purchasing cost. Last month, a Pickle user even earned $30,000 on the app, says McMahon.<\/p>\n

The playful name nods to the phrase \u201cin a pickle,\u201d a wink at last-minute wardrobe emergencies. As cofounder and COO Julia O\u2019Mara put it to Fortune, if you suddenly find yourself \u201cin a pickle\u201d and need an outfit fast, you can borrow one from a neighbor in your community or have it delivered via two-day express shipping anywhere in the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way we describe the business is a rental and retail place, kind of like an Airbnb<\/a>, but for things that you own,\u201d McMahon tells Fortune.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Need a statement piece for a beach vacation? Rent a Miu Miu straw cowboy hat, which retails for $825, for only $50. For a trip overseas, consider a floral \u201cEuro Summer\u201d Zimmerman dress which normally sells for over $1,200, but can be rented on Pickle for $230 instead.<\/p>\n

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Launched in New York City as a hyperlocal marketplace, Pickle has expanded to all 50 states, with most users concentrated in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, and Boston.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are really using it everywhere, and a lot of these up-and-coming cities start with this shipping method, where they\u2019re getting a taste of borrowing from someone else\u2019s closet,\u201d O\u2019Mara says. \u201cThey then convert as a lender as well, open up their closet, and it helps kickstart that initial community there too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pickle appeals to cash-strapped Gen Z<\/p>\n

The app targets younger <\/a>consumers interested in online fashion trends, but who may not be able to afford the steep price tags of luxury goods. Gen Z\u2019s spending power is rising, and the cohort is projected to make up 40% of U.S. fashion consumers in the next ten years, according to Boston Consulting Group<\/a>. At the same time, demand for luxury goods continues to climb, with global revenue expected to reach $700 billion by the end of the decade, according to a recent report<\/a> from McKinsey & Company. The U.S. remains the world\u2019s largest market by sales.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Gen Z is struggling with access to discretionary spending<\/a>. Pickle offers users a quick, last-minute, and affordable rental option for access to social media\u2019s most coveted pieces.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThese generations are often valuing access over ownership, where there\u2019s a lot of value in being able to try out a new trend or a new style or participate in a micro trend without consuming and adding something new to your closet that you\u2019re going to get forever,\u201d O\u2019Mara says. \u201cIt\u2019s something that you\u2019re able to wear one time, guilt free, return it to that next person, and try out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pickle is a newer entrant to the growing resale market, and faces stiff competition from Rent the Runway, Nuuly, <\/a>and The RealReal. But Pickle is betting on its peer-to-peer lending approach. Fortune\u2019s Emma Hinchliffe was first to report<\/a> Pickle had raised $12 million in Series A funding in March 2025, backed by FirstMark, Craft Ventures, Burst Capital, and FJ Labs. The company says its current funding sits at $20 million total in capital as of July 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing and hearing from users, especially Gen Z, that Pickle is becoming a gateway into luxury,\u201d cofounder and CEO Brian McMahon told Fortune. \u201cRenting on Pickle lets them experience a designer across different moments and get a feel for the fit, quality, and value before potentially deciding to buy in the primary market.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pickle\u2019s inception<\/p>\n

McMahon and O\u2019Mara met while working at investment giant Blackstone<\/a>, and initially launched the platform as a social polling app focused on shopping. But when they saw users in the comments recommending clothing items to each other from their own closets, they realized there was a real opportunity for peer-to-peer rentals, and pivoted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Within only a week, Pickle evolved into a full-fledged marketplace. McMahon spent the early stages coding and engineering the platform while O\u2019Mara led marketing and outreach. For the first two years, they were Pickle\u2019s only employees, juggling everything from troubleshooting bugs in the app to hand-delivering rentals across New York City by public transit, a literal example of how many hats they wore in the beginning. The founders tell Fortune they took the subway more than 4,000 times to and from sales before hiring employees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole experience kind of feels like DoorDash<\/a>, but for clothes,\u201d McMahon says. \u201cWe ran around the city for the first eight or so months doing all the deliveries so we could talk to all the customers and learn all the feedback, and then go home and implement everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Initially, the entrepreneurs sought out up-and-coming New York fashion influencers to help promote the brand. They scheduled photoshoots in the Soho neighborhood, and enlisted student photographers from the nearby Fashion Institute of Technology to showcase their inventory, according to O\u2019Mara.<\/p>\n

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The photos rolled out across social media to attract new users, but the cofounders say their best marketing tool is old-fashioned word of mouth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ultimate way that we grow is really just by getting what we call \u2018clothes on bodies,\u2019 so when people rent an item from Pickle or buy an item from Pickle, they are typically going out and wearing it somewhere social,\u201d McMahon says. \u201cSomeone will say, \u2018Hey, I love that outfit. Where\u2019d you get it?\u2019 And they\u2019ll explain, \u2018I got it on Pickle,\u2019 and that\u2019s the highest impression you can get.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pickle has recently partnered with New York social media influencers including Halley Kate<\/a>, who shares listings to her over 2 million followers across Instagram and TikTok. When Pickle opened its doors with a new brick-and-mortar in the West Village in 2023, it enlisted the help of Kit Keenan<\/a> to attract new customers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

A community of Picklers<\/p>\n

The app has a growing stronghold in Manhattan, with 25% of women aged 18 to 35 using the app, according to Pickle. Many lenders turn to the platform as a side hustle.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe, of course, get really excited as people see a lot of traction and really do start to lean on this as a great source of income,\u201d McMahon tells Fortune.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Martyna Wiacek, an advertising employee at Pinterest<\/a>, first heard of Pickle through a friend. Her storefront specializes in wedding gowns and guest attire, and now earns between $2,000 to $3,000 every month.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter renting out one or two times, you kind of get hooked,\u201d Wiacek tells Fortune. \u201cI started thinking, \u2018What else can I add that I have to my Pickle closet?\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wiacek likens the experience to lending clothes to a friend, and says she\u2019s been able to build a community with repeat local customers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing through all these milestones together has been a cute bonding experience,\u201d Wiacek says, adding that sales often fluctuate across seasons. \u201cPeople always like the idea of renting something they\u2019re only going to wear once.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pickle has been on the rise in several cities nationwide\u2014and it doesn\u2019t appear to be slowing down anytime soon. The company says more than half of active users this year have rented out at least one item per week, according to Pickle.<\/p>\n

McMahon told Fortune in his final thoughts: \u201cGen Z\u2019s appetite for luxury is strong, and Pickle is shaping how they discover it, access it, and decide what is worth owning.\u201d<\/p>\n