Luxury brands get in on the pre-loved act

As a fashion-curious teenager growing up in a provincial Italian city, shopping for vintage clothing was for me a rare and treasured occasion. I remember driving with my mum and sister to Forlì for the biannual vintage fair, an expedition that would last a whole afternoon as we trawled, often multiple times, the 5,000-square-metre expanse of stalls. It was there, among the mix of motorcycles, Bakelite jewellery and temporary tattoo parlours that I found my first treasure: a 1970s Celine box bag in smooth burgundy leather, which I bought for €150 after long and hard consideration.

However, not everyone has the time or inclination to hunt down that dream piece. And with demand for second-hand items rising precipitously — the second-hand luxury goods market has been outpacing growth in the overall luxury goods market for at least the past five years, according to Bain — luxury brands are now getting in on the action, and making it easier for shoppers to buy bona fide vintage wares.

In the past two weeks alone, Jean Paul Gaultier has launched a vintage selection on its website; Valentino has announced that customers can now return their Valentino garments to selected boutiques, which will begin selling authenticated pieces under the new Valentino Vintage label; and Diesel has launched Diesel Second Hand, making pre-owned, restored jeans bought back from customers available for purchase. On Gucci Vault, which was launched in September, customers can purchase a selection of reconditioned Gucci items, from handbags to homeware. Philippa K, Rachel Comey and Marques’ Almeida are also now offering resale on their websites, the first two as peer-to-peer marketplaces.

These vintage offshoots are small and unlikely to impact the bottom line in any meaningful way for now. But they are an effective way to draw in new, climate-conscious consumers and boost customer loyalty, analysts say. “Younger demographics are focused on making sure that the brands that they are buying into are performing well on ESG [environmental, social and governance] criteria,” says Kathryn Parker, senior associate in luxury goods research at Jefferies. “One thing brands can do that is very visible is to launch projects in resale.” 

For Mark Cross, second-hand has already become a significant business. In 2019, the US leather goods label launched a vintage section on its website with pieces bought back from customers, a segment that now represents almost 10 per cent of sales, according chief executive Ulrik Garde Due. Prices range from £280 for leather wallets to £2,500 for handbags — which is comparable to the cost of new items.

Cannibalisation of sales of new bags hasn’t been an issue. On the contrary, 20 per cent of users entering the site for vintage end up buying products at full price, says Garde Due. “It’s still mind-boggling to me as to why nobody else has really jumped in,” he adds.

Diesel chief executive Massimo Piombini seems genuinely surprised by the response to the launch of Diesel Second Hand. On launch day, November 3, the brand sold 50 of 150 pairs of reconditioned jeans, priced between €75 and €115 — about half the cost of a new pair. “We were expecting much less, to be honest. If this is the trend, this is not just going to be a good project, but a very profitable one,” he says, speaking on Zoom from the company’s headquarters in Breganze, Italy.

But 50 pairs of jeans is a drop in the bucket for a brand as large as Diesel. Preparing used denim for sale is also laborious: the label has only processed about 25 per cent of the 900 pairs of jeans it has bought back since July, as the process of reconditioning and sanitation is done by a single supplier. Piombini concedes that the project is expensive in terms of logistics and reconditioning. “The real challenge will be rolling it out in other locations,” he says.

Customers who purchase Diesel Second Hand products are likely to be enticed by price, as well as gaining access to styles the brand doesn’t produce any more. According to Boston Consulting Group, the number-one reason listed by consumers for second-hand consumption, even at a luxury price point, remains affordability.

However, in the case of some brands, there is little price difference between second-hand and new. On Gucci Vault, a vintage Jackie Square G handbag from the 1970s costs £2,110. A Jackie 1961 model costs £1,750 new.

So who are luxury brands targeting with these new ventures? “I’m not the target audience because for me it’s a hobby,” explains Sarah Kate Byrne, a vintage and sustainable stylist and co-founder of Open for Vintage. “The reason why brands are launching these spaces is because your average consumer now wants to find something unique and one-off but doesn’t have time to go to a fair.”

Instead, these easy-to-navigate, hyper-curated vintage offerings are likely to resonate with those first-hand luxury shoppers for whom second-hand is becoming a virtue-signalling flex.

“For a consumer of luxury brands, popping a new outfit all the time is not necessarily as aspirational [as it was before],” says fashion trend forecaster Geraldine Wharry, mentioning how celebrities are starting to recycle their outfits on the red carpet. “There is a movement around pointing that out and putting it out as a model behaviour.”

More generally, these initiatives tap into a change in the way that consumers, and especially younger ones, build their wardrobe, focusing on uniqueness, exclusivity and a long-lasting investment, without distinguishing too much between first- and second-hand. “Consumers are more and more interested in investing in pieces emotionally as something that they want to keep for a very long time,” says Stavros Karelis, founder of London-based concept store Machine-A. “Whether it belongs to the vintage world or to young designers is less and less relevant, it’s more about a unique offering and having an emotional connection.”

Last week, Machine-A formed a partnership with vintage brand Byronesque to launch Machine-B, a retail concept that breaks the barrier between vintage and contemporary by fully integrating an edit of archive pieces from the latter, including brands such as Rick Owens, Maison Martin Margiela and Raf Simons, with Machine-A’s current-season offering on the shop floor.

Joy Montgomery, a shopping editor who is in charge of the Secondhand Shopper franchise, says that “offering these pieces alongside the main collection puts them on an equal footing [and contributes to] the idea of second-hand as an open and viable alternative, not more faff for the shopper.”

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