Today, according to Business of Fashion, the luxury secondhand market is growing four times after than the primary luxury market, at 12 percent per year versus 3 percent. Recently, luxury department stores have opened new second-hand corners, or sometimes entire floors to that new evolving market. This is the case of Mon Vintage at Printemps or the (RE)STORE space in Galeries Lafayette showing how important second-hand is inherent within consumers expectations. It has to be noted that there, space dramatisation is oftenly devoid of any originality. A particularity that is the very essence of second-hand.
SECOND-HAND CULTURE HAS ITS OWN CODES THAT EVERY BRAND SHOULD DEAL WITH AND PROGRESSIVELY INTEGRATE.
Originally born in the street, second-hand has always been associated with space adaptability. Second-hand sellers act like stage actors, re-creating emotional and sometimes daily life scenes, and adapting themselves easily to new environments. Retail space is conceived as a wonderful organised clutter ; a true metaphor of each one of us house and intimate sphere, therefore creating a unique emotional bond with the consumer.
Secondly, second-hand is about the right temporality. It allows a fictional suspension of time-and space and consumers are used to an ephemeral type of events, mixing past and present into a new realm and relating ordinary to extraordinary. Finally, second-hand sellers retailers are “ heritage keepers” that favour instinctive dialogue with a true informal speech creating sincerity and authentic storytelling.
After all, second-hand is a cultural activity. The second-hand experience is quite a symbolic act, each one of us participating in a collective history and living an emotional and social experience.
Accordingly, the imaginary codes of second-hand practices offer new ways for luxury to follow and be truly meaningful and memorable. From staging the creative process, recreating energy shots of creative messiness or re-writing sales pitch for making them more truthful and interactive, luxury actors have everything to win concerning second-hand strategies.
A rejuvenating spirit that we carefully analyzed in our annual Trends Observatory 2023. Coupled with the brand DNA and imaginary, it could make the retail a place where vintage fascination can totally reach a new peak of delight A move that almost no one has been able to completely reinvent.
