THE ETERNAL VALUE OF VINTAGE

Sustainable, rare, and original: vintage luxury checks all the boxes for forward-thinking fashion lovers. No wonder luxury brands are now rushing in to claim the resell space.

- Jessica Michault and Radhika Bhalla

Fashion is an interesting industry. It is constantly doing two things simultaneously: looking to the future, predicting impending trends and styles, while taking stock of its past to help inspire the next. That dichotomy is currently in even starker relief as two aspects of fashion are pulling into focus: the evolution of the vintage space and the revolution that is the metaverse. And while the metaverse, with its NFTs, avatar outfits, and virtual accessories is still in its infancy, the mature vintage fashion industry is being leveraged in exciting new ways by luxury houses, start-up platforms, and entrepreneurs.

Luxury houses are approaching the resell market from a number of different angles. The first out of the gate with its concept was Gucci. Back in September during Milan Fashion Week, the Italian house created a platform called Gucci Vault where it sells vetted vintage Gucci pieces, customising some of them to give them a modem update, and pricing them in line with current Gucci items. But the brand went further. It created space on the site to highlight a number of young designers it was collaborating with, and in December 2021, it also tapped 12 up-and-coming jewelry designers, just in time for the holiday season. Thus, the site has become a point of convergence between the brand’s 100 years of history and fashion’s global future.