MJust like the items they sell, flea markets are nothing new. Since the Salvation Army opened its doors in 1865, savvy shoppers have scoured thrift stores, hoping to find cheaper versions of expensive products. But as the fashion industry faces increasing pressure to reduce its environmental impact and reduce the glut of items on the market, luxury and outdoor brands are also turning to “re-commerce.”

Many large companies are turning to resale, repair and rental models to extend the life of clothing, reduce waste and reduce their carbon footprint. Some luxury brands like Rolex are launching their own second-hand goods marketplaces, while others partner with digital second-hand stores. Dozens of leading brands have joined popular consignment platforms to participate in the certification and sale of their used products.

These include Athleta, which started collaborate in 2022 with thredUp to launch a “Preloved” marketplace offering customers in-store credit for items sold, and Gucciwhich launched a microsite in 2020 with authentic pre-owned products in partnership with Real Real, the world’s largest online consignment retailer.

“Luxury brands have learned to understand it as a commercial opportunity, a way to give their activities a dimension more focused on environmental responsibility than on the production of new,” explains Peter Semple, marketing director of Depop, a marketplace. online opportunity. with 35 million users.

Semple credits Depop with bringing many of these luxury brands into the fold of the second-hand market. In 2019, the company took over Ralph Lauren’s flagship store in London for a three-month residency, during which users selected vintage pieces from the designer’s past collections. Partnerships with Adidas and Benetton followed.

Other brands prepare their products “ready for resale” from birth. For its Spring 2023 line, the French house Chloe has embedded all of its products with unique identification serial numbers. Customers ready to resell the items can scan the IDs and automatically list them on Vestiaire Collective, a second-hand digital marketplace.

“This technology ensures traceability throughout the product lifecycle, enabling customers to make informed purchasing decisions, offering maintenance and repair instructions and direct resale options, thereby extending the shelf life of our products,” the company said. said in its end-of-year 2023 report on the impact of the project.

Certainly, these brands are outliers among the biggest luxury brands that have historically prioritized prestige over sustainability. Many high-end brands burn or destroy unused products to control supply and maintain brand value. However, some luxury brands see the foray into second-hand products as a way to regain control over the price, quality and authenticity of their products in the second-hand market. And done well, these efforts offer brands a viable path to decarbonization by reducing consumer demand for new products.

Currently, only 1% of products are recycled in the fashion industry value chain, according to a 2020 study. McKinsey study. But circular strategies like resale could cut the need for new production by a third and reduce annual carbon emissions from premium and outdoor brands by up to 16% by 2040, according to research by the supply chain analysts from Worldly last year. Circular business models, including clothing rental, recommerce, repair and refurbishment, could enable the industry to reduce around 143 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, according to the McKinsey study.

These efforts could present a significant opportunity to decarbonize one of the world’s dirtiest industries, responsible for up to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than the aviation and shipping industries brought together, according to the organization. The United Nations.

Resale has also proven to be an attractive option for a new generation of consumers increasingly concerned about the industry’s environmental impact and in rebellion against ultra-fast fashion.

Nora Hogerty grew up saving money with her mother in Wisconsin. This experience taught him a love of fashion and responsible consumption. Today, the 25-year-old PR agent says 75 percent of his wardrobe is second-hand, much of it purchased online. “There is so much trash and so much clothing,” she says. “People are trying to find excitement in a different type of shopping.”

Aemilia Madden, a writer in New York, received an invitation to a wedding with an all-black dress code earlier this year. She didn’t have anything suitable in her closet and wanted to avoid buying a cheap product that would soon end up in a landfill. So she bought a Tove silk dress authenticated on Real Real for less than $200. “Finding second-hand items allows you to participate in fashion without participating in the same level of fashion waste,” says Madden. “I hope that participating in the process will keep things from ending up in landfills and limit the production of what is made.”

Other brands try to encourage consumers to maintain and repair their products before throwing them away. Outdoor brands, long known for their generous return policies, are now teaching consumers how to fix things themselves. Patagonia has launched a series of videos to teach consumers how to repair their zippers and buttons. REI has created a treatment library of articles with instructions on how to clean outdoor equipment to extend its life.

Yet for these efforts to have a large-scale effect, experts say consumers need to limit their overall purchases. The fashion industry produces 100 billion pieces of clothing per year and consumers buy 60% more clothes today than 25 years ago. “If ultimately your business model is still based on increasing the number of products you put on the market, even if you propose these initiatives, you will have the impression of missing the point because we already know that it “There are too many products on the market,” says Delphine Williot, policy manager at Fashion Revolution, an environmental and labor industry organization.

Sustainability efforts will have no effect if companies seek production growth year after year. “If a brand is truly committed to circularity,” she says, “then they will prioritize repair and recycling rather than increasing the quantity of products they will put on the market. »