Luxe Treasure Hunt

At any given time, the online fashion resale website Fashionphile has more than 50,000 items available for sale. Products range from new designer handbags by Chanel, Hermès and Gucci, to pre-loved designer shoes, jewelry, small leather goods and more.

“We are currently growing at about 100 per cent year-over-year, which means we are getting more and more items on the site every day,” Sarah Davis, founder and president of the Carlsbad, California-based company says, adding that, while sustainability is undoubtedly a point of interest for shoppers searching for secondhand finds, the main motivator for purchasing pre-loved still comes down to cost.

“The number one driver of buying preowned has always been and continues to be interest in getting a deal,” she says. “People are looking to buy luxury items that they can’t always get, for less than retail. At Fashionphile, we have beautiful preowned pieces on our site from every single brand for less than a Coach bag at retail. You literally can buy Chanel, Hermès, Louis Vuitton for under $500.”

Increasing overall retail prices of luxury goods are also playing a major part in the popularity of pre-loved shopping, according to Alex Jane, owner of the Vancouver-based luxury resale boutique Modaselle. “In recent years some of the classic designs of certain brands such as Chanel and Rolex have seen a huge jump in their prices,” he says. “Certain brands are also limiting their production, thus creating more secondary demand due to boutique supply shortages.”

A lack of supply shortages on the preloved market is something Davis also points to as a boon for business: “Our supply chain is your closet to our headquarters; while some brands are having supply issues and shortages for many reasons, we don’t have products sitting in shipping containers and have no limitations on what we can sell.”

While eco-conscious consumption and an eye for a deal are two main motivators behind shopping recommerce—the term being favoured by industry insiders for the resale of previously owned pieces—for fashion collectors, the market also offers the opportunity to find items that have long since left big-brand boutiques.

“The secondary market is absolutely a good resource for out-of-production and limited pieces that are no longer available,” Jane says. “Some designs have a very limited production and, once they are gone from the retail stores, the only source for acquiring these items is through preloved boutiques.”  

These types of pieces can garner “huge demand as collector’s pieces,” he adds, pointing to pieces from Chanel, Hermès, Rolex and Cartier as some of the most sought-after options on the resale market. “These are the pieces which hold their value the most and, oftentimes, the popular designs are hard to find in retail stores.”

For “savvy shoppers” using platforms like Fashionphile, Modaselle and LXR to make a luxury purchase, they do so with overall investment in mind. Maintaining resale value is a key consideration, experts say, which is helping to make the luxury resale market a circular exchange. 

“Many of the items that we are currently selling have been bought and sold and bought and sold many different times,” Davis says. “Our grandmothers may have talked about ‘heirloom pieces’ but, today, people are looking at investment pieces. They’re thinking about resale as they make every purchase, and are quick to turn things around when they aren’t using them.” —Aleesha Harris