Our Story

Wild West Social House was not born from lofty goals. It sprouted from a simple dilemma. The firsthand struggles of our stylist friends, who were charged thousands of dollars every time they needed to rent looks for their clients. As former owners of private showrooms, my co-founder and I had been beneficiaries of these outsized rental fees. However, asking your friends for three grand to rent a look for a weekend doesn't leave a great taste in your mouth.

We set up coffees with dozens of stylists and discovered they were spending upwards of $30,000 - 50,000 yearly on restocking fees. Armed with that knowledge, an idea began to seem inevitable.

There was no operating cost which mandated restock fees be so high, but things are what they are because no one cares to challenge the status quo.

Stylists aren't a billion-dollar industry, so there was nothing sexy about disrupting the market. But they're a network of extremely hard-working people, and if we provided a service to enough of them, undercutting the market on rentals by as much as 80%, we could run a decent little shingle.

Over those coffees, our first members were signed up. It seemed our idea had roots.

Here's the thing about ideas. An idea is infinitely still until it shifts — by hand or by spoken word — to the corporeal world. At that point, it begins to resemble a running river. You can steward and corral it, like a levee or dam, but never again is it within your total control.

We realized that what we built for stylists was heading towards a larger audience.

Maybe everyone isn't forced to rent clothing at exorbitant prices, but as we spoke to more and more walk-ins, we learned there were a lot of people unhappy with the status quo of fashion in 2024.

We went looking for some statistical evidence to back this up, and uncovered the following: Consumers buy 40% more clothing than ten years ago, and keep their clothes half as long. In that same time, YoY inflation has hiked the price tags of luxury garments by as much as 500%. Luxury fashion conglomerates have cut their own costs and raised the customer's. This has grown their market caps at staggering rates, all while managing to be the third-largest waste-producing industry in the world.

As I stared at the racks of gorgeous garments within our showroom, dating back to the 1960s, I couldn't help but wonder why we need this retail song and dance every season.

I heard it again in my head: “things are what they are because no one cares to challenge the status quo.” And then came the realization which guides our business:

All the clothing the world needs already exists.

What didn't exist, was a way to connect the product to the consumer. Think of finding a rare film before streaming went global. If you wanted to watch an art house film, you had to seriously be in the know. If you want to rent a Gucci by Tom Ford tux for a special night, you had better be deeply embedded in the fashion world.

So we set out to create an ecosystem. One which interlocks vendors and consumers, to the benefit of everyone. This may sound haughty, but at its most fundamental, it boils down to three principles:

Deliver a dream wardrobe at the lowest price

Are our memberships cheap? Simply put, no. They cost at minimum $3,600 a year and at the high end $12,000. But consider 20% of the world's luxury fashion consumers spend between $3,000-$10,000 a year on fashion. That's a non-trivial amount of the world. What would be the effect of showing them a better way? Ensure they find daily gratification in their wardrobe at a price they can afford. If we can pull that off, a proof exists. Proofs are replicable. They hold across inputs. Who's to say we can't one day offer options that scale to anyone's spending power?

Nurture self-expression

Clothing is how we take ownership of our appearance. This power to affect self-image, confidence, and outward projection which clothing wields is why we seek out employees with styling expertise. By melding their learned knowledge with emergent technology, we strive to reach a point where whenever you step into the world, you enter it projecting the image you desire. It's not about the latest trends, it's about making you the most confident version of yourself.

Celebrate vintage collectors

There are too many amazing vintage dealers in this world to count. To listen to them speak of clothing is to hear epic poems only lives given to a passion can spin. But their love belies the fact that selling vintage clothing is hard. They are their own marketing arm, accountant, buyer, and sales associate. As corporations cannibalize the vintage market, these collectors and their memories are at risk of vanishing like lost languages. We intend to intertwine them and build a network greater than the sum of its parts. Offer them a white glove e-commerce platform, local customers, and opportunities to create recurring revenue. To wake up every day and do something you love is a noble deed. It deserves to be rewarded.

But we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater — we still intend to continue the tradition of luxury hospitality. Who doesn't love the sales associate who remembers their sizes and styles, or the glass of champagne on a silver tray?

We're LA natives who grew up idolizing our local Barneys New York. The bar at the top was the pinnacle of cool, and we remember the first time a sales associate took the time to get to know us. We hope to capture this experience at our Los Angeles flagship space — open to all members who happen to be in town. In the former home of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, we offer parlor-style accommodations on a 4,000 sq ft top floor, along with a regularly scheduled programming slate, ranging from dinners to black-tie parties, to book clubs and movie nights.

To enjoy great clothing in a setting insulated from the hustle and stresses of daily life is a great pleasure of every fashion lover, and we want to preserve that. It's the other side of the bargain we hope to improve upon.

If you connect with our mission, we hope you have a look around. We're waitlist-only at the moment, as we plan to scale slowly and with purpose. But if you wish to join us on this journey, apply for a membership, I promise your application will be read personally by both of us.

Kind Regards,

Max Feldmann & Kyle Julian Skye