Interior of The Resale Shop. Photo courtesy of The Resale Shop.
LUXURY RESALE St. Louis Leads the Way Written by Lou Ann Wilcox
I was 28 years old the first time I saw a woven Bottega Veneta handbag and within 30 seconds I vowed to own one. The design - so complex. The leather - so soft. The statement it made - so stylish. It took quite a few years to find a Bottega Veneta bag I could afford. I eventually found the dainty orange leather woven number, which I now dangle from my wrist with pride, at The Vault Luxury Resale. Buyers and sellers of authentic luxury goods, The Vault is a multimillion dollar resale business on Brentwood Blvd. According to Diana Ford, director of luxury goods and gatherings at The Vault, the sales of handbags, their No. 1 selling item, as well as apparel and shoes, have increased substantially in the past two years. 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 to well-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. We’re not talking vintage here: we’re talking about luxury items originally purchased in the past three years. Vintage items are generally those made between 25 and 100 years ago and clearly reflect the styles and trends of the era they represent. “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.” An August 2021 Verified Market Research report (a global datagathering resource), says the luxury resale market in the U.S. was valued at $16.23 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach $68.53 billion by 2028, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 15.53% from 2021 to 2028. This includes antiques and artwork as well as apparel and accessories. There are major discrepancies from source to source, however. According to Luxe Digital, luxury resale is currently valued at $24 billion and is growing four times faster than the primary luxury market, at 12% per year versus 3%. It is important to note that resale doesn’t necessarily mean used. A lot of resellers sell items that are new but currently scarce. Without a doubt however is the fact that more people of all ages are shopping luxury resale. In January, I had a chance to talk luxury resale with Jessica Duneman, director of retail operations at The National Council of Jewish Women St. Louis’s The Resale Shop (NCJWSTL), located on Lindbergh Blvd. in Creve Coeur, as well as Ford from The Vault. Both have a great story to tell about luxury resale in St. Louis, positioning our city as a source for resale luxury goods nationwide. The Vault opened 30 years ago as The Women’s Closet Exchange in south St. Louis County. The founder, Sue McCarthy, who is Ford’s mother, was the star of the Style Network’s reality series, Resale Royalty, which was produced by celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe and aired in 2013. Another daughter, Laura Maurice, serves as chief curator. They moved eight years ago to their 7,000 sq. ft. dream store in Brentwood and changed their name to The Vault. Explains Ford, “The Vault buys luxury items outright. That’s rare in the luxury resale business - most consign. We see about 1,000 items per day. Of those 1,000 pieces, we may only purchase 400-600 of them - nearly all in-season. Because we’ve got skin in the game, we only buy what we know will sell.” Another daughter, Laura Maurice, serves as chief curator. She acknowledges that this involves managing people’s expectations. “We encourage people to bring in whatever they have because you just never know.” See page 32 for more on selling to The Vault. slmag.net
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