I assumed I knew everything about buying secondhand clothes. As a former Vogue editor, I regularly mix new with pre-loved fashion, and have an Ebay account dating back to the early aughts, which I regularly use to search for items alongside Vestiaire Collective and Vinted. So fresh from a year spent repairing clothes rather than buying new ones, I decided to set myself another challenge: exclusively buy pre-loved pieces for a whole year.
However, the gems I accumulated — from the Balenciaga Prince of Wales Hourglass jacket from Spring/Summer 2024 (Ebay) to the Friends-era Levi’s 501s (Vinted), and the Sacai for Nike sneakers (Depop) — meant this didn’t feel like much of a challenge at all. These were not impulse buys, but rather, the rewards of a hunt that I plan to keep in my closet forever.
Balenciaga Prince of Wales Hourglass jacket from their SS24 collection purchased on Ebay and a look from the Balenciaga Resort 2024 collection.
Photo: Courtesy of Emily Zak/ Courtesy of Balenciaga
This mindset isn’t universal, though. For some high-frequency secondhand shoppers, the lifespan of a pre-loved item is getting even shorter, undercutting sustainability claims. A recent study in Nature draws a correlation between resale shopping and the virtuous feeling it creates, which can undermine the benefits of resale by emulating fast fashion buying behavior.
Buying pre-loved often displaces the purchase of a new item. But as demand for resale grows and there are more ways to buy secondhand, a familiar, troubling behavioral pattern is emerging. Online, Goodwill hauls promote buying used garments in bulk, replicating fast fashion hauls that populate YouTube and TikTok, and increased demand for secondhand clothing runs the risk of increasing demand overall.
In the end, it left me second-guessing my assumptions about shopping secondhand.
Resale’s new reach
“It has never been easier to buy secondhand clothing,” says Bay Garnett, veteran Vogue stylist, Oxfam senior advisor, and author of Style and Substance: Why What We Wear Matters. “It’s no longer just for the eccentric oddballs, where maybe you’d find something great, or not. It’s now much more sophisticated.” Powered by AI algorithms, digital marketplaces, enhanced authenticity checks, and a desire for more sustainable clothing, the resale market is experiencing tremendous growth. It was valued at $210 billion in 2025 and is expected to become a $320-$360 billion global business by 2030, according to Boston Consulting Group’s Catharina Martinez Pardo.
Many use the terms vintage and secondhand interchangeably, but they describe different customers and shopping behaviors. Vintage pieces — loosely defined as over 20 years old — are often of higher quality than new clothing and retain their value over time. Whereas secondhand refers to any item that has been previously bought, with few qualifiers outside its stated condition. More tools that measure a garment’s lifespan — based on brand, condition, and material — could help customers understand what they’re buying and how long they should expect it to last.
