Closet Club
A gym membership for your wardrobe.
City apartments keep getting smaller. Wardrobes do not. Closet Club proposes that, like fitness, your wardrobe could live outside your home, in a beautifully designed shared space you walk to.
You keep your clothes there, you change there, you store seasonal pieces there. Your apartment stays calm. Your relationship to your clothes becomes more intentional.
The summary I wrote when I first noted this idea down:
ClosetClub is a conceptual reimagining of the personal wardrobe for modern urban living. Instead of owning a cluttered closet in a small apartment, members would have access to a network of beautifully designed, shared wardrobe spaces throughout the city.
How it would work
Members get a private locker or rack in a club close to where they live or work. The space is staffed, climate controlled, and beautifully built out, more lounge than storage unit.
You drop off and pick up like a gym kit, with optional steaming, light pressing, and shoe care included. Premium tiers add full laundry and tailoring.
The club also hosts swap nights and care workshops, so the wardrobe stops feeling like a chore and starts feeling like a place.
Who it is for
Urban renters with small apartments and a love of clothing. People who travel often and want their off rotation pieces out of the way. Couples sharing a small bedroom who keep negotiating closet inches.
Why now
Average new apartment size keeps shrinking in major European cities while spend on clothing per capita stays flat or grows. The space, not the clothes, is the constraint.
Shared third spaces (coworking, gyms, kitchens) are already a normal part of urban life. The wardrobe is one of the last unshared rooms.
FAQ
Questions people usually ask.
- Is this clothing rental?
- No. You keep your own clothes. The club provides the storage and the care infrastructure.
- How much would it cost?
- The target is somewhere between a parking spot and a premium gym, scaled by locker size. Final pricing depends on the city.
- What about insurance and theft?
- Every item is tagged and insured against loss or damage as part of the membership, similar to high end watch storage.
- Could brands have shelves too?
- Optional. Members could try and buy from a small curated rack inside the club, but only if the community votes a brand in.
- Where would the first one open?
- Munich is the obvious first city to test, with one location in a central residential district.
This idea is for sale
I am not going to build this one.
I have more ideas than years. Leaving this one on a shelf helps nobody, so you can have the whole working file, or you can have the idea itself. Both routes are below, and both are priced so that somebody who is actually going to do the work can afford to start.
Shared licence
The dossier
€49
Everything I worked out about Closet Club, as a printable PDF you own for life. Written for somebody who wants to start on Monday, not for somebody who wants to be entertained.
- ·The location maths: how much floor area a hundred members need, and what that means for rent in a real European city
- ·A per member cost model down to the square meter, including staffing, climate control and the care services
- ·The insurance and liability question, which is the part that decides whether this works at all
- ·Membership tier design, with the pricing logic behind each tier rather than round numbers
- ·Fit out notes: what makes the space feel like a club instead of a storage unit, and what that costs
- ·The first ninety days, from lease negotiation to the first fifty founding members
A shared licence means you may use and build on everything in the file. It is not exclusivity, other people can buy the same dossier, and it transfers no name, domain or code. Immediate download, so your right of withdrawal lapses on delivery. See the withdrawal terms.
If you would rather have this idea to yourself than share the dossier, say so and we can talk. Be aware that for this one there is no domain, no prototype and no code waiting for you. There is the thinking, and an agreement that I take the idea off this page. Write to me.
Tell me you would join
Drop your details if a wardrobe membership in your city would interest you.