Why Farfetch Wants to Give Your Designer Bag a Second Life

Style Points is a weekly column about how fashion intersects with the wider world.If there was an overarching theme to this fashion season, it was that seasons themselves no longer matter. What with Prada riffing on its hit ’90s prints, Coach reissuing pieces from recent seasons—as recent as fall 2020—and even fledgling designers reimagining their less voluminous catalogs, the idea of reaching into the archives was a through-line of spring 2021.It’s not just designers, of course—people are rifling through their own backlogs more than ever. They’re rediscovering pieces they suddenly want to wear again, as well as ones they’d like to trade in for a new model. The luxury industry, once resistant to resale, began to see it as a badge of honor. In recent years, big names like Burberry and Stella McCartney have partnered with resale giant The RealReal, while Rebag has blossomed as a destination for gently worn designer goods.

A street-style image promoting the Farfetch Second Life campaign.
Jason Jean

Farfetch—created to link shoppers with far-flung boutiques, from London emporium of cool Browns to Amore, the vintage Chanel wonderland in Tokyo—is one of the e-commerce forces that has helped make pre-owned goods fashionable, not to mention desirable. The site, says its Chief Commercial and Sustainability Officer Giorgio Belloli, “was built on the premise of selling existing stock in small boutiques around the world—to better match supply and demand and reduce waste.” It has been offering curated vintage and pre-owned pieces for the past decade, and is the only multi-brand site with a pre-owned section.

A street-style image promoting the Farfetch Second Life project
jonathan paciullo

Its latest project, Farfetch Second Life, promises to further dissolve the barrier between luxury and resale. Belloli found that “resale is an area of increasing interest for our customers,” and he notes that the pre-owned luxury market is predicted to hit $64 billion within the next five years. When designers re-introduce past styles in their collections (à la the Dior saddle bag or the Fendi baguette) Farfetch has seen increased demand for the pre-owned versions of those items. Last year, the site began piloting the Farfetch Second Life program in the UK and Europe. It allows customers to…

—

Source: elle.com