Top Takeaways
ThredUp Launched their 2024 Resale Report
Curated For You has partnered with Microsoft Copilot
Rachel Comey Launches Updated Premium Resale Platform
The Increasingly Popular Solve to Fashion’s Wholesale Woes: JOOR
Inditex is Reshaping Fashion?
Global secondhand fashion market to reach $367 billion by 2029: ThredUp
By Jennifer Braun of Fashion Network
Online resale platform ThredUp has launched its annual 'Resale Report' revealing that the global secondhand apparel market is projected to reach $367 billion by 2029, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10%.
This year’s report, released in partnership with GlobalData, highlights that the secondhand apparel market outpaced the broader retail clothing market by five times in 2024. The U.S. secondhand apparel market grew 14% in 2024—its strongest annual growth since 2021.
In terms of shopping behaviour, shoppers are increasingly turning to secondhand options in response to economic shifts. In fact, 59% of consumers say if tariffs and trade policies make new apparel more expensive, they will opt for secondhand, a figure that jumps to 69% among Millennials.
With secondhand shopping becoming mainstream, brands are integrating resale into their business models. Ninety-four percent of retail executives report their customers are already participating in resale, a new record high. Likewise, 32% of secondhand shoppers in 2024 purchased directly from a brand, with nearly half (47%) of Gen Z and Millennial consumers doing the same.
“As consumers are increasingly thinking secondhand first, the retail industry is adopting powerful new pathways for resale,” said James Reinhart, CEO, ThredUp.
“From the integration of social commerce and innovative AI applications to the establishment of trade organizations and interfacing with government, it’s clear why resale is seeing accelerated growth and has such a promising growth trajectory.”
Curated for You partners with Microsoft to unlock the future of AI-powered fashion discovery
Curated for You, the AI-powered lifestyle commerce platform, is excited to announce a new collaboration with Microsoft.
The partnership aims to transform fashion discovery, starting with bringing AI-powered curations directly into everyday conversations in Copilot, Microsoft’s AI companion.
By pioneering conversational commerce in the fashion space, the collaboration will use natural dialogue to help users connect to products based on the events and trends that resonate in their lives.
“This collaboration represents a transformative step forward in how consumers discover fashion. By integrating our AI-powered lifestyle curation platform with Microsoft Copilot, we're creating natural, contextual and personalized shopping moments that feel like conversations with a trusted friend who truly understands your needs,” said Katy Aucoin, CEO, Curated for You.
The companies will collaborate and co-innovate to evolve how customers discover fashion, presenting expertly curated recommendations within Microsoft shopping ecosystem, reaching millions of users worldwide.
"With Generative AI, we're elevating the customer shopping experience by infusing it with empathy and intention. This collaboration aims to solve the timeless problem of 'what should I wear' by understanding each user's unique lifestyle and preferences.” Jennifer Myers, Principal Product Manager for Microsoft Shopping, said.
Rachel Comey Launches Updated Premium Resale Platform to Spotlight Rare and Timeless Pieces
Rachel Comey said it is elevating its resale experience for shoppers with a new name, “Rachel Comey Archive,” along with additional new features that spotlight exclusive items.
Partnerships with re-commerce experts Archive and Tersus Solutions power the designer brand’s resale platform. The company said the new platform “will offer curated collections of unique and never-produced pieces, and aims to make it easier for brand loyalists to discover pre-loved treasures and singular finds.”
The new features include “Hidden Gems,” which will be a collection featuring one-of-a-kind pieces that range from “never-produced samples to beloved styles from previous collections.” Another new feature is “In Search Of,” which lets customers request items “from past collections and connect with others who own them, creating opportunities for resale and discovery.”
The company said shoppers can continue buying and selling pre-loved items through a more curated and elevated user experience. “Tersus Solutions will manage the intake and fulfillment of brand inventory, including ‘Hidden Gems’ pieces and new-with-tags items from previous collections,” the company said.
Caitlin Wiman, director of e-commerce at Rachel Comey, said the brand always “believed in the timelessness of great design and the importance of keeping clothing in circulation for as long as possible. Through our new partnerships with Archive and Tersus Solutions, we’re evolving the secondhand shopping experience with Rachel Comey Archive — a more curated, premium resale platform that makes it easier for our community to find and rehome beloved pieces.”
Wiman said by expanding the program “to include one-of-a-kind samples and sought-after styles from past collections, we’re not only celebrating the longevity of our designs but also taking a meaningful step toward a more circular and sustainable future.”
The Increasingly Popular Solve to Fashion’s Wholesale Woes
By Malique Morris of BOF
The solution for fashion retailers’ inventory dilemma? Increasingly, not holding any inventory at all.
Fashion brands have been burned by traditional wholesale: Late payments and abrupt closures have become the norm amid sector-wide consolidation. That’s leading more labels to gravitate towards what, at first brush, appears a safer option: online marketplaces that offer drop shipping — a wholesale alternative where labels fulfil customers’ orders directly from their inventory instead of selling a bulk of their goods to a retailer.
These sort of marketplaces are as old as e-commerce itself — think Amazon, Etsy and Wayfair — having long operated by listing goods from third-party sellers instead of buying inventory. But interest in fashion-specific marketplaces that specialize in drop shipping is accelerating. In 2025, the 11-year-old luxury e-tailer Garmentory received 40 inquiries from new brands a month, double from around 20 in 2023. Similarly, 5-year-old Cult Mia has seen the number of brands that want to sell on its marketplace grow to 250 a month in 2025 from 75 in 2023.
“The goal of a healthy brand retailer relationship is that it’s one that is long lasting, and for that to happen, it needs to be that both sides are seeing the benefit and that the benefits outweigh the cost,” said Amanda McCormick Bacal, senior vice president and global head of marketing at wholesale software platform Joor.
Inditex is reshaping fashion with our innovators, turning textile waste into high-quality, circular designs.
Through Zara’s collaborations with Circ®, Evrnu®, SPC, and Infinited Fiber Company, they’re integrating recycled materials and pioneering new solutions to reduce reliance on virgin resources.
Quick Headlines
more articles
Lyst Finds a Buyer in Zozo—But at What Cost to Its Former Glory?
B2B Digest: How Style Arcade Is Using AI to Future-Proof Fashion Inventory
Final Call for Luxury: How Mile Is Rewriting the Rules of Excess in Fashion
Could CaaStle's Financial Misconduct Allegations Break Fashion Tech’s Fragile Trust
H&M’s AI Models: A Necessary Controversy?
hello@allthingsfashiontech.com