Resale has surged in popularity in recent years, thanks to the rise of sites such as The RealReal, Vestiaire Collective and Depop. But increasingly, brands are looking to take ownership of the growth in second-hand fashion, with the likes of Gucci, Valentino and Jean Paul Gaultier all entering the market of late.
Now, Ganni has become the latest to launch its own resale platform, allowing customers in the UK and Scandinavia to sell and buy pre-loved pieces via a peer-to-peer model. “[During] the last 10 years, it has always been about newness, newness, newness,” Ganni’s creative director Ditte Reffstrup tells Vogue. “But I can see a change – it’s becoming cool and trendy to wear the old stuff.”
Of course, the growing demand for second-hand is in part being driven by increasing concerns about fashion’s environmental impact. “Behaving responsibly has [long] been a priority for us,” Ganni founder Nicolaj Reffstrup says. “When you start mapping out your carbon footprint, you realise quite early on that you need to consider the afterlife of your product.”
Indeed, as Nicolaj points out, more than 70 per cent of garments currently end up in landfills or are incinerated – a shocking figure that shows the level of change that needs to take place within the fashion industry. Meanwhile, waste charity WRAP suggests extending a garment’s life by just nine months can reduce its carbon, waste and water footprints by between 20 to 30 per cent, showing the benefits of getting on board with the resale model.
By integrating resale on its website as part of its Ganni Repeat initiative, the brand wants to make the whole experience as easy as possible for customers, encouraging more to shop second-hand. “The whole point is that we want to make anything that pertains to the afterlife of our product so seamless and fluid that the consumer won’t necessarily notice if he or she is buying a new product, [a second-hand product] or renting a product,” Nicolaj continues.
Further down the line, the brand wants to introduce a notification function, that will allow customers to be alerted if there is demand on the resale market for a garment they’ve previously bought. Nicolaj is quick to point out, though, that resale can’t be simply seen as an excuse for consuming more and more clothes. “There is obviously a risk that this motivates the consumer to spend more money on new stuff,” he says. “So it’s not an excuse to not continue to create new product[s] that [are] constantly improving in terms of responsibility.”
Nonetheless, the rising demand for resale does suggest consumers’ shopping habits are beginning to change, as awareness about fashion’s waste problem grows. “I do hope that sustainability [is the] force behind it; that people actually want to do better,” Ditte adds.
With Ganni also recently partnering with repair service Sojo in the UK, as well as launching rental back in 2019, it’s clear that the Scandi brand is taking a 360-degree approach towards sustainability. “If you want to be in this industry, you have to [introduce these initiatives],” Ditte concludes. “People know that we have to change.”
