005. Shopping on Secondhand Platforms - I Spill All My Secrets
How I discover designer finds on platforms like Vestiaire Collective and The Real Real, and elevate my wardrobe whilst shopping more consciously.
Some people have an addiction to Instagram. Others like to scroll through TikTok for hours. My crack pipe is called Vestiaire Collective. I started buying and selling clothes on Ebay during my penultimate year of high school (17 years ago, sheesh!), and I never got over the thrill of hunting down a treasure. Just last week, I bought a Marni silk top Anne Hathaway’s character wore in The Devil Wears Prada. I had been on the lookout for it ever since the movie came out, and I snagged it off Vestiaire Collective for £25.
I don’t consider myself a thrifter. I do not buy pieces that show signs of wear, and only browse with these filters on: ‘Never Worn With Tag’, ‘Never Worn’, and ‘Very Good Condition’. I shop secondhand because it is sustainable, but let’s be honest - also because I am extremely picky about quality and the brands I shop from, which I can’t always afford to buy full price yet, and I refuse to settle for less. If you are more lineant with the condition of the clothes and don’t mind a few signs of wear, using the tips that I lay out below, you are set to find even more treasures at even more attractive prices.
[Important Disclaimer: As always when it comes to fashion, there are complex sustainability and ethical implications to shopping secondhand. It is by no means a be-all and end-all solution to the crisis our industry is facing. For one, it is not size-inclusive. There is also a romantisation of secondhand shopping, of which I am definitely guilty, which has caused the inflation of vintage prices to a rather grotesque degree. Without question, this is limiting access to affordable sustainable clothing for those who need it most. The rise of TikTok has also fuelled an unhealthy trend of fast-secondhand-fashion consumption, with hundreds of thousands of hauls showing teenagers returning from thrifting shopping sprees with 20+ items purchased for 50p each, most likely never to be worn beyond the length of that video. This topic deserves its own newsletter, but I wanted to acknowledge these important limitations before we dive into the fun parts].
Without further ado, here are my tips, as a lifelong black-belt secondhand shopping champion, for finding the clothes of your dreams on the resale market.