RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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When Kat Friday, a revenue operations employee at financial technology firm Marqeta, first came across Pickle on TikTok in February 2025, she didn’t think opening a storefront on the app would ever amount to much.
“I am not into fashion one bit. I wear all black everywhere,” Friday tells Fortune . She initially opened the app to scan for a few outfits for an upcoming vacation. But as she scrolled through Pickle’s more than 500,000 listings, Friday realized she also could use the platform to rent out an expensive camera sitting on a shelf collecting dust in her apartment.
In November 2025, she listed a Canon G7 X camera, which normally retails for around $1,000, for $150 a week, and waited for a response. The rentals came almost immediately.
“I never use this thing and people are dying for them,” Friday says. “I immediately got a bunch of rentals for it, and I was like, ‘okay, I’m gonna list some other stuff.’”
The listing’s 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 “trendy” items in a variety of sizes, what she referred to as “investment pieces” to rent out on Pickle.
“I remember after renting out that camera a couple times, I was like, ‘Holy sh-t, there’s a market for this,’” Friday tells Fortune . “I looked at some of the other top lenders in the New York area and surely I could just buy these clothes.”
After just eight months, Friday has already become one of the platform’s top lenders, and considers herself to be a “high-volume” 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’s currently looking to hire her first employee while she balances a full-time role with fulfilling about 25 to 30 orders a week.
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.
“There’s always things to be cleaned,” Friday says. “There’s always orders to be packed. There’s always orders to be accepted.”
Pickle’s rise
Pickle, a peer-to-peer luxury clothing rental service founded in 2021 by Brian McMahon and Julia O’Mara, offers its predominantly Gen Z and millennial customers access to luxury clothing and accessories at a fraction of the purchasing cost. Last month, a Pickle user even earned $30,000 on the app, says McMahon.
The playful name nods to the phrase “in a pickle,” a wink at last-minute wardrobe emergencies. As cofounder and COO Julia O’Mara put it to Fortune , if you suddenly find yourself “in a pickle” 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.
“The way we describe the business is a rental and retail place, kind of like an Airbnb , but for things that you own,” McMahon tells Fortune .
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 “Euro Summer” Zimmerman dress which normally sells for over $1,200, but can be rented on Pickle for $230 instead.
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.
“People are really using it everywhere, and a lot of these up-and-coming cities start with this shipping method, where they’re getting a taste of borrowing from someone else’s closet,” O’Mara says. “They then convert as a lender as well, open up their closet, and it helps kickstart that initial community there too.”
Pickle appeals to cash-strapped Gen Z
The app targets younger consumers interested in online fashion trends, but who may not be able to afford the steep price tags of luxury goods. Gen Z’s 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 . 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 from McKinsey & Company. The U.S. remains the world’s largest market by sales.
On the other hand, Gen Z is struggling with access to discretionary spending . Pickle offers users a quick, last-minute, and affordable rental option for access to social media’s most coveted pieces.
“These generations are often valuing access over ownership, where there’s 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’re going to get forever,” O’Mara says. “It’s something that you’re able to wear one time, guilt free, return it to that next person, and try out.”
Pickle is a newer entrant to the growing resale market, and faces stiff competition from Rent the Runway, Nuuly, and The RealReal. But Pickle is betting on its peer-to-peer lending approach. Fortune’s Emma Hinchliffe was first to report 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.
“We’re seeing and hearing from users, especially Gen Z, that Pickle is becoming a gateway into luxury,” cofounder and CEO Brian McMahon told Fortune . “Renting 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.”
Pickle’s inception
McMahon and O’Mara me...
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