Vestiaire Collective

Ensuring its fashions and accessories enjoy the longest lifespan possible, Chloé is unveiling a digital ID that includes an ownership certificate that facilitates swift resale through secondhand marketplace Vestiaire Collective.
The French house is billing the resale readiness as an industry first. The digital ID known as Chloé Vertical also details product care and repair information and allows consumers to trace all the materials used to create its luxury bags, shoes and ready-to-wear.

Chloé said the ID labels, employing technology from Eon, come on certain items in linen, silk, wool and leather, starting with the spring 2023 collection.

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“The initiative has three main purposes: to ensure authenticity, traceability and to facilitate care and repair,” the fashion house said in a statement. “Customers can learn more about the entire manufacturing process, find care and repair instructions, and also locate their product certificate of authenticity, complete with a unique ownership number.”

A dress from Chloé’s spring 2023 collection.

Courtesy of Chloé

The fashion house partnered with various suppliers and manufacturers to reveal the entire supply chain and production processes.

Chloé noted that all leather for Vertical items is sourced from French farms, the hides then tanned by Haas, a tannery that carries the Enterprise du Patrimoine Vivant (or Living Heritage Company, in English) label. A farming cooperative in Normandy, France, called Terre de Lin, supplies all the linen, grown using low-impact farming techniques and spun and woven domestically.

Silk carries Global Organic Textiles Standard certification, while all wool is sourced from Chloé creative director Gabriela Hearst’s family ranch in Uruguay and then spun and woven in Italy.

Riccardo Bellini, president and chief executive officer of Chloé, said the Vertical initiative will give consumers the opportunity to “make informed decisions about the transparency, traceability and circularity of our products.”

The company plans to share its methodologies via its Open Source initiative.

The instant resale option will launch in the U.S., Europe and the U.K. as an exclusive one-year pilot project.

Eon technology streamlines the resale experience and customers can receive a voucher to redeem at Chloé, at Vestiaire Collective — or they can funnel it to UNICEF’s gender equality programs, which the fashion house has supported since 2019.

Chloé noted it has committed to incorporating digital IDs into all of its products by 2025. These are embedded in the product via an NFC tag or QR code that can be scanned by a smartphone.

Resale and the City?
Darren Star, the American television wiz behind “Emily in Paris” and “Sex and the City,” is among three new investors in French luxury resale site Resee, WWD has learned.

The others are American tech entrepreneur Shari Glazer, founder and chief executive officer of Kalos Labs, and Michael Dayan, a cofounder of French e-commerce pioneer Showroomprive.com, a former owner of Sonia Rykiel and a frequent tech investor.

“I’ve been following the Resee journey for years,” Star told WWD. “I was attracted by the appeal of curated vintage fashion, but most of all by the level of taste and intelligence behind the brand.“

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Figures from the entertainment world have recently become active investors in fashion and beauty firms, applying their wealth, fame, credibility and consumer insights to help brands grow.

According to Resee, the trio of experts from various fields will “support the company’s exponential growth at the heart of the very buoyant secondhand market.”

Financial terms were not disclosed, but it’s believed the investments total in the single-digit millions.

In a statement, Resee cofounders and majority owners Sofia Bernardin and Sabrina Marshall said the new funding round would help accelerate its international expansion, burnish its global sourcing capabilities and help it invest in the necessary tech to optimize its capabilities.

Expansion will next focus on Switzerland, Hong Kong and Singapore. France remains a key market for Resee, and it recently opened at showroom on Avenue Kléber in Paris.

Next week, it plans to open a monthlong pop-up shop at the Carlyle Hotel in New York City. The U.S. was Resee’s largest market in the first half of 2022, accounting for 38 percent of sales.

The company is gunning to reach sales of 25 million euros by 2025.

While smaller than rivals like Vestiaire Collective or The RealReal, Resee boasts an average basket of 1,161 euros.

A Prada look from the Resee site.

Courtesy of Resee

Founded in 2013, it specializes in such covetable fashion items as Hermès handbags, archival Alaïa and runway pieces from Karl Lagerfeld-era Chanel and Phoebe Philo-era Celine. Its roster of notable resellers include actress Catherine Deneuve, jewelry designer Gaia Repossi, fashion designer and painter Vanessa Seward and creative director and consultant Vanessa Traina.

In tandem with its new investors, Resee said it is setting up an advisory board to support the brand’s development. Among new members are Sébastien Fabre, cofounder and former CEO of Vestiaire Collective.

Buoyed by strong global demand for vintage and secondhand high-end goods, the company has been logging revenue growth of about 120 percent each year, and boasts that it has been profitable from the get-go.

The global secondhand apparel market is forecast to grow by 127 percent to $218 billion by 2026, three times faster than the global apparel market overall, according to the “2022 Resale Report” by online resale platform ThredUp.