Luxury Re-Sale: A Thriving Trade

Are pre-loved pur­chas­es the way for­ward for fashion? 

By Liv Leftwich 

Since the pan­dem­ic began, most of us have become more cost-con­scious when it comes to the way we shop. From bud­get-friend­ly steals to chic, char­i­ty shop finds – Covid-19 has engi­neered a shift in how we think about fash­ion – and most impor­tant­ly, how we pur­chase it. 

The sec­ond-hand retail mar­ket is home to sev­er­al pre-loved plat­forms, rang­ing from tra­di­tion­al thrift stores to online re-sale web­sites. It’s esti­mat­ed that 12 mil­lion UK con­sumers pur­chased a pre-loved item back in 2020. With a 404 per­cent year­ly increase in sales since 2018 – the indus­try con­tin­ues to grow at an expo­nen­tial rate. 

Pre-lock­down, com­pa­nies such as BooHoo and Pret­ty Lit­tle Thing had been under fire for advo­cat­ing the fast-fash­ion trend. Unsus­tain­able resources cou­pled with uneth­i­cal motives are hav­ing astro­nom­i­cal effects on the envi­ron­ment — encour­ag­ing con­sumers to re-eval­u­ate their shop­ping habits. 

Qual­i­ty ver­sus Quantity 

The appeal of pre-loved lux­u­ry is that these pieces will stand the test of time. The val­ue of design­er goods is in the unique crafts­man­ship that goes into each indi­vid­ual item. View­ing fash­ion as an invest­ment has become an inte­gral part of the “shop less, buy bet­ter” mind­set. Savvy con­sumers are latch­ing onto the premise of buy­ing to sell on – extend­ing the life­cy­cle of their clothing. 

Gen­er­a­tional Shift 

The younger gen­er­a­tion are lead­ing the way in boost­ing the cir­cu­lar econ­o­my for fash­ion busi­ness mod­els. Last year’s COP-26 con­fer­ence in Glas­gow ampli­fied the cli­mate change cri­sis – a glob­al issue, which is at the fore­front of many mil­len­ni­als’ minds. There is less of a stig­ma amongst gen­er­a­tion Z when it comes to sec­ond-hand shop­ping. As the Vice Pres­i­dent of mar­ket­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions at ThredUp reports — buy­ing used cloth­ing is a way for them to “sig­nal their val­ues” about sus­tain­abil­i­ty. Indeed, US com­pa­ny, The Real­Re­al claimed that one third of users shop on the re-sale plat­form as an alter­na­tive to fast- fashion. 

Expert Insights

We spoke to Clau­dine Larkin, Store Man­ag­er of lux­u­ry re-sale store and Chelsea hot-spot — Sign of The Times.

“I’ve seen so much change over the years in this indus­try — it’s ever-evolv­ing. Since Covid, the pub­lic are becom­ing much more recep­tive to the pre-loved con­cept, which is brilliant”. 

Also shed­ding light on the buoy­an­cy of the sec­ond-hand mar­ket is Cus­tomer Delight and Trad­ing Super­vi­sor, Mol­ly Hay­wood. We asked her about the ever-chang­ing con­sumer demand and dis­cussed why acces­sories will be an inte­gral part of the upscale of re-sale. Read what Hay­wood had to say below: 

“There was a mas­sive online shop­ping boom in lock­down, par­tic­u­lar­ly for lux­u­ry acces­sories — which was a big game chang­er for the industry”. 

She con­clud­ed that: 

“If the top fash­ion hous­es con­tin­ue to increase their prices, there is def­i­nite­ly the oppor­tu­ni­ty for re-sale to super­sede retail. Cloth­ing is still very much trend based. How­ev­er, in my opin­ion, the biggest oppor­tu­ni­ty for growth is in the clas­sic hand­bags and acces­sories – those time­less, sta­ple pieces”. 

While post-lock­down loungewear might be here to stay — styling a casu­al look with a lux­u­ry, state­ment hand­bag is a trend that will always tran­scend the test of time. Whether it be val­ue for mon­ey or sim­ply shop­ping smarter – the pre-loved mar­ket is gar­ner­ing the atten­tion of con­sumers and design­ers alike.