Not your grandmother’s hand me downs! Stores like The Vault and The Resale Shop are redefining the luxury resale market…

Luxury resale has taken off nationwide for a plethora of reasons. Gen Z and millennials, interested in saving the planet and ethical sourcing, or shoppers experiencing supply chain delays, have provided much of the motivation. Affordability is a component but not a primary driver. The quantity and quality of available luxury goods for resale is at an all-time high due towel-dressed women who vowed to clean their closets during the pandemic doing just that, donating or selling their high-end clothing and accessories. Online resellers are facilitating the growth of the preowned market well beyond what brick-and-mortar stores ever did before. And most important, the stigma of buying, using, and wearing resale items is eroding or gone. There is a new view of how valuable some of the resale products are.

“It’s chic to repeat,” says Susan Sherman, co-founder of the St. Louis Fashion Fund and MERCH, a pop-up trunk show business based in St. Louis. A champion shopper and one of the metro area’s fashion doyennes, Sherman says she’s definitely seen resale evolve in the past few years. “The thrill of the hunt for well-made and beautiful iconic pieces is part of it,” she says.“Who doesn’t love finding a great piece at a bargain price? It’s a very interesting form of entertainment. But it’s also about circular fashion–repairing the reputation of the fashion industry as it relates to sustainability and sourcing. It’s generational. My 28-year-old daughter, and she’s not alone, wants to know where and how her clothing is being made, are the workers earning a fair wage, is sustainability part of the process--all to avoid adding more 'fashion waste' to landfills.”

Spring is the perfect time to reinvent your wardrobe! Find out more about luxury resale in STL in our current issue: https://issuu.com/sophisticatedliving/docs/slsl_m-a_2022/s/14944716