Why Second Hand Clothing Got a Wider Invitation to Fashion Week 2024
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Fashion Week is all about what’s new - the trends, the designers, and the clothes that will be dominating fashion in the coming months.
And yet, the fashion industry is increasingly conscious of the environmental impact that this ‘always new’ culture has. What’s more, it’s increasingly conscious that consumers are aware of it as well.
That’s why this year’s London Fashion Week (LFW) has extended a wider invite to second hand fashion.
Caption – Image credit: Chris Yates and Oxfam
Oxfam and eBay Take to the Catwalk
When it comes to preloved clothing at Fashion Week, London led the way with two shows dedicated to second hand looks.
UK charity Oxfam teamed up with peer-to-peer resale marketplace Vinted to open LFW with the Style for Change show. The models were celebrities and all of the looks were made up of second hand clothing from both luxury and affordable names. Styling was by Bay Garnett who has a long track record of using pre-owned clothing in looks.
Elsewhere, e-commerce marketplace eBay partnered with the British Fashion Council (BFC) on another catwalk show of second hand fashion ahead of the main Fashion Week schedule. Designed to mark 40 years of LFW, the looks featured vintage and archival pieces from top British designers who have taken part in LFW over the last four decades, plus second hand modern designer and high street items.
Part of eBay’s inaugural Preloved Fashion Week, the show in London was one of two ‘Endless Runway’ events. The first was ahead of New York Fashion Week (NYFW) in partnership with the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA). The first entirely second hand runway show at NYFW, it featured items from previous collections and archival pieces from designers showing during NYFW, curated and styled by fashion creative Wisdom Kaye.
Both catwalks were livestreamed on eBay Live with viewers able to buy the exact pieces on show.
Caption - Image credit: eBay
Real Time Inspiration to Purchase
This isn’t actually Oxfam or eBay’s first time at Fashion Week.
Second Hand September was launched by Oxfam in 2019 to encourage people to buy only second-hand clothing for the whole month. The charity has also been taking part in LFW since 2021, but not as part of the official schedule. It even previously teamed up with eBay to make those looks available to buy from the marketplace after the show, with all of the money going to Oxfam.
What’s interesting about this year’s events is that the clothes on display are available for sale online at the moment that viewers see them on the catwalk. This makes sense given that eBay and Vinted are e-commerce platforms, but it’s a level of inspiration-to-purchase immediacy that we’ve rarely seen in digital fashion resale.
A more typical use case for eBay or Vinted is that customers are inspired elsewhere or see an older piece that someone else has and then turn to resale platforms to find it. Or they’re simply searching by keywords and browsing through the results - much like using Google search when hunting for new clothes.
What resale marketplaces like eBay and Vinted haven’t done so well is proactive product inspiration and discovery. A lot of this is down to the limited nature of the items listed on each platform - when you only have one of a specific item in a specific size, it’s hard to promote that in a way that doesn’t frustrate all the customers who click through to buy it.
Shoppable livestreams around events like Fashion Week are great for solving that disconnect. They also help to make browsing second hand marketplaces an instinctive part of consumers’ shopping journeys, rather than always turning to the new.
Notably, when eBay became the sponsor of the reality dating show in Love Island, there was a huge uptick in consumer searches for preloved fashion (up 1,600%) and sustainable fashion (up 7,000%). This shows the power of putting second hand front and centre as a buying option at the point where consumers are being inspired.
Caption - Image credit: Chris Yates and Oxfam
Second Hand Clothing at Fashion Week Makes Sense
Fashion is always about looking back as much as it is forward as the same trends come and go - often with new tweaks. This makes second hand clothing a logical fit for Fashion Week.
Second hand fashion also doesn’t just benefit the environment, it arguably benefits brands as well. It can act as an entry point for consumers, particularly at the higher end of the market, because it is more affordable. Those same buyers may go on to become regular customers of the brand in the future. At the same time, it diverts spend that could have gone on new cheap fast fashion pieces into keeping existing items going for longer.
Making second hand clothing part of Fashion Week also tells consumers that brands care about their legacy. It’s an act that says that their old clothes are still worth having and are to be celebrated and worn. It’s a shift away from a fast trend driven mindset towards one that recognises that clothing doesn’t have a use by date and doesn’t have to be discarded every season.
This also plays into one of the most important truths about Fashion Week and fashion as a whole - that it’s not all about the clothes specifically. It’s how they’re styled.
In fact, for many Fashion Week viewers, the styling is the most important or interesting bit. By mixing second hand pieces into looks, Fashion Week has the opportunity to inspire fashion lovers in how to put together second hand pieces in new ways. This is vital in extending the lifespan of clothes as trends evolve - fashion lovers don’t necessarily want their vintage fashion to look like a direct throwback. What they want is to be able to restyle pieces to fit with current trends and keep them feeling fresh.
Caption - Image credit: Chris Yates and Oxfam
Bigger Opportunity for Preloved Fashion in the Future
While this year’s LFW was a welcome step forward, there’s a clear opportunity for preloved fashion to play a much bigger role at Fashion Week in the future.
In eBay’s fourth-annual eBay Recommerce Report, 59% of 28,000 global consumers said they had bought pre-owned goods in the last year and more than 70% said they plan to buy pre-owned goods in 2024. With consumers actively choosing to look for preloved items when buying clothes, Fashion Week has the chance to help guide and support them in buying second hand.
One opportunity could be for resale platforms to partner with established designers and showcase pieces from their own archives in new ways. Guests could also be encouraged to make more sustainable choices such as wearing pre-owned pieces, or borrowing or renting items from designers.
Fashion brands could also find new commercial opportunities in preloved fashion that helps shift their mindset away from only producing new items.
As well as its catwalk events, eBay also tapped into Fashion Week by releasing daily drops of pre-owned pieces from top designers who were showing new collections this year.
There’s no reason that fashion brands couldn’t partner with the platform to do something similar, or even to add archival fashion to their stores and websites during Fashion Week. For those who watch or consume Fashion Week content but don’t typically buy anything, this could be a way to help them dip their toe in - and reduce their environmental impact while doing so.