Australian fashion retailer The Iconic has begun offering resale as an option on purchases, with the intention of kicking off its own circular economy.
This service has been created in partnership with Airrobe, a company that provides ‘The easiest way to buy and sell secondhand fashion. In just one-slick.’
“We’ve partnered with The Iconic to enable you to join the circular fashion movement. Now, you can extend the life of your purchases from The Iconic by re-selling or renting your pieces back into a circular economy after you’ve worn and loved them,” said Airrobe on its website.
“After you opt-in, and purchase an item from The Iconic, Airrobe automatically pulls all the details of your purchase and uploads it onto your private Airrobe account, ready for you to list later.”
Erica Berchtold, Chief Executive of The Iconic told AFR: “We’re bringing resale to the fore, at the very start of your purchase process. Before now it has been an afterthought.”
There are plenty of strong players in the resale space, such as Vestiaire Collective and Depop, but Ms Berchtold believes the circular economy of clothing can be rocketed forward by brands themselves hosting resale and rentals, by providing a new level of convenience.
“We have done all the hard work. Customers can feel confident knowing that they have the imagery of the clothing, all of the correct details and a fair pricing structure for their items.
“It takes the guesswork out of resale and we believe that will lead to greater uptake of the circular economy.”
Second-hand retailer ThredUp provided AFR with the numbers on why this is such a profitable and significant movement. Over the next five years the market is set to double to $106 billion and in the past year alone, 33 million customers worldwide have bought second-hand clothing for the first time.
Depop was recently purchased by Etsy for approximately $2.2 billion, showing that big money is being splashed in the market.
Airrobe founder Hannon Comazzetto sees The Iconic partnership as a door towards making participating in a circular clothing economy an easy and accessible pursuit, rather than a niche one.
“In the past, the circular economy has been for people with really strong believes in sustainability.
“That is changed as the barriers to entry lower. The solutions have not been there before now to make the circular economy easy to access and simple to use. We want to make buying something second-hand as easy and enjoyable as buying brand new.”