Big Fashion Brands Sell Secondhand, Will It Become Fast Fashion 2.0?

Secondhand fashion used to mean digging through vintage pieces and thrift shops, finding something nobody else had.

But now some of the biggest fashion brands want in too, with Zara, H&M and many more building their own resale programmes or bringing secondhand clothing into their stores as the resale market keeps growing - note this - the resale market keeps growing!

Recent reports from The Wall Street Journal looked at this major change, with brands increasingly wanting a piece of a market that has long belonged to platforms like eBay and Vinted.

Existing garments moving from wardrobe to wardrobe is a positive move, but there is one tiny catch.

Secondhand cannot just become fast fashion wearing a vintage jacket.

Please Don't Turn Secondhand Into a Weekly Haul

Buying something pre-owned can absolutely extend its life and reduce the need for another new garment, but secondhand works best when it replaces buying new, not when it becomes ten extra purchases just because they were cheap or technically sustainable.

If your wardrobe was overflowing before and is now overflowing with preloved clothes instead, the clothes are circular, but your shopping habits are not.

Secondhand is not a trend. This is the weird part about fashion suddenly becoming obsessed with resale.

But Can We Talk About All the New Clothes Too?

Brands continuing to produce more and more new clothing at the same time makes the circular picture less impressive.

H&M itself says resale and repair can keep products in use for longer and reduce the need for new resources, which sounds excellent, but that idea has the greatest impact when those circular models actually begin replacing some new production.

How can large fashion brands sell secondhand clothing and then go on to produce thousands of new clothes that do not even last long enough to become somebody else's secondhand?

Buy Secondhand, Just Don't Buy Everything

The rise of resale is great.

Secondhand should make us more mindful about what we buy, not give us permission to buy more, and brands have an equally important part to play by making durable clothes that can replace some of that constant new cycle.

If we turn secondhand into fast fashion 2.0, we may have changed the clothes, but not the problem.