Luxury fashion brand Oscar de la Renta is taking a deeper step into the resale business by allowing its customers to buy vintage dresses from “Sex and the City,” “Succession” and other TV shows as part of its product line expansion, Bloomberg reported Tuesday (Jan. 25).
The designer launched secondhand shop Encore in November, bringing the looks it debuted on the runway to customers on consignment after they are authenticated and restored, according to the report. The goal is to match its brick-and-mortar service through its online platform, with the logistics and payments handled by Archive.
The fashion resale market is worth $130 billion, with The RealReal and Poshmark among its dominant forces, the report stated.
Oscar de la Renta CEO Alex Bolen said he considers Encore to be “a valuable tool” to gain new customers and keep their existing ones, according to the report.
“We think about resale as a way for us to acquire new customers and most importantly retain existing customers,” Bolen said, per the report. The companies sees resale “as a fundamental change in luxury fashion going from a consumable or disposable to an asset.”
Oscar de la Renta sold 40 pieces from its first batch of vintage items and will soon release its second batch — with 31 iconic dresses and 15 pieces of fine jewelry from DKF — Wednesday (Jan. 26). The company also plans to roll out an auction function in the next several months, letting customers bid on dresses previously worn by celebrities in films and TV as well as on the red carpet and at the Met Gala and other events.
Encore is intended to provide customers with a sustainable alternative to buying new items by working with individual clients and vetting vintage sellers to curate an exclusive selection of pieces, Oscar de la Renta officials said when they launched the platform in November.
Read more: Luxury Brands Rush to Own the Resale Experience
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