Leading the Way in Luxury Resale

Not your grandmother’s hand me downs! Stores like The Vault and The Resale Shop are redefining the luxury resale market…

Luxury resale has taken off nationwide for a plethora of reasons. Gen Z and millennials, interested in saving the planet and ethical sourcing, or shoppers experiencing supply chain delays, have provided much of the motivation. Affordability is a component but not a primary driver. The quantity and quality of available luxury goods for resale is at an all-time high due towel-dressed women who vowed to clean their closets during the pandemic doing just that, donating or selling their high-end clothing and accessories. Online resellers are facilitating the growth of the preowned market well beyond what brick-and-mortar stores ever did before. And most important, the stigma of buying, using, and wearing resale items is eroding or gone. There is a new view of how valuable some of the resale products are.

“It’s chic to repeat,” says Susan Sherman, co-founder of the St. Louis Fashion Fund and MERCH, a pop-up trunk show business based in St. Louis. A champion shopper and one of the metro area’s fashion doyennes, Sherman says she’s definitely seen resale evolve in the past few years. “The thrill of the hunt for well-made and beautiful iconic pieces is part of it,” she says.“Who doesn’t love finding a great piece at a bargain price? It’s a very interesting form of entertainment. But it’s also about circular fashion–repairing the reputation of the fashion industry as it relates to sustainability and sourcing. It’s generational. My 28-year-old daughter, and she’s not alone, wants to know where and how her clothing is being made, are the workers earning a fair wage, is sustainability part of the process--all to avoid adding more 'fashion waste' to landfills.”

Spring is the perfect time to reinvent your wardrobe! Find out more about luxury resale in STL in our current issue: https://issuu.com/sophisticatedliving/docs/slsl_m-a_2022/s/14944716