It’s a market that keeps growing: in 2020, second-hand luxury was worth €28 billion worldwide, according to a report by management consultancy Bain & Company. The proliferation of online second-hand platforms and the establishment of dedicated sections in stores have accelerated the trend.
In the 1980s and 1990s, fashion and luxury items that had already been worn were of particular interest to collectors. But times have changed, especially with the advent of the internet: in the early 2000s, websites emerged to resell used luxury items online.
Today, according to Bain & Company, one of the leading consulting firms in this area, the market for new goods is worth between 250 and 295 billion euros per year.
However, the expert Serge Carreira, lecturer at the Sciences Po University in Paris and responsible for the “Emerging Brands Initiative” at the Fédération de la Haute Couture, believes that “the very lively dynamic” of the second-hand luxury market is interesting: this one Market is growing faster than the luxury market with new items.
According to a report by the Boston Consulting Group, it’s growing four times faster, noting that digital platforms generate 25 percent of total second-hand luxury sales.
Second-hand goes online
At the end of the 2000s, new companies entered the second-hand market and started new offers on the web. At that time, the idea was to offer collection pieces from large houses, but also prêt-à-porter clothing from brands such as Isabel Marant, MaxMara or Zadig et Voltaire.
In France, Vestiaire Collective is dominant in this field and has been very successful since its creation in 2009. Today the company is worth 1.45 billion euros and every week 25,000 new articles are put online.
Publicly traded American company The Real Real, which was founded in 2011 and is based in San Francisco, is another large second-hand company.
More and more specialized platforms were added until the mid-2010s. Collector Square opened in 2012 before launching ByLuxe (now Monogram) in 2015 and website CrushOn in 2018. These websites also open brick-and-mortar stores: Monogram has a warehouse in the 17th arrondissement of Paris and Collector Square has a showroom on Boulevard Raspail.
Department stores step into the breach
The dynamism of the market is also attracting department stores today. This is how Collector Square starts in October 2020 in the Bon Marché Rive Gauche.
On September 14, 2021, Galeries Lafayette on Boulevard Haussmann will open an entire floor of the store for second-hand and “responsible fashion”, housing brands such as Monogram, Personal Seller or CrushOn. Eight days later, just a few steps away, Printemps opens a similar space, the “7ème Ciel” (Seventh Heaven), but more dedicated to luxury: all the pieces come from well-known fashion brands.
Reluctance of fashion designers and luxury houses
However, in the luxury sector there are only a few examples of brands that are involved in this area.
Among them is Isabel Marant, who launched her vintage website to sell and buy back the brand’s second-hand items. Stella McCartney (in 2018) and Gucci (in 2020) have partnered with The RealReal to ensure the sale of their pre-owned products. And the Kering Group (Gucci, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Boucheron) has a 5 percent stake in Vestiaire Collective.
The markets for new and used luxury items remain closely linked, says Serge Carreira: “The trends in the second-hand sector follow the trends in the first hand. For example, Dior is very popular today. Therefore, one of the most popular second-hand products is the 1990s saddle bag by Dior” (AFP).
This item was previously on FashionUnited.