Tatler dives into Asia’s resale market and look into how vintage experts—including Jaime Xie from ‘Bling Empire’ and online store for selling and buying second-hand fashion Vestiaire Collective—are making shopping pre-loved cool
“I had so many clothes and I was doing a lot of shopping. Then my mom was like, ‘Jaime, the clothes that you don’t wear anymore, they are just sitting there, right?’” says Jaime Xie, Bling Empire star and fashion influencer. “I was selling things on eBay and I discovered vintage.” The 24-year-old Chinese American reality TV star started shopping vintage about four years ago and now keeps a growing collection of more than 200 second-hand pieces.
Over the past year, she has brought vintage looks—from John Galliano’s Dior to archival Versace—to runway front rows and red carpets. A couple of days before speaking to Tatler by phone from Los Angeles, Xie was in London, where she spent five hours in a vintage boutique and introduced another fashionista to the concept. “I took my mom vintage shopping for the first time. She loved it too.”
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Xie is one of millions driving momentum in the resale market. According to the 2022 resale report by ThredUp, the largest online thrift and consignment store, the global second-hand market is expected to grow to US$36 billion by 2024 and to more than US$200 billion by 2026. While the pandemic crippled physical retail, the growth of the second-hand market in Asia and Australia is more than three times faster than that of the new apparel market.
Consumers in the Apac market have a huge appetite for luxury,” says Sophie Hersan, the fashion director and co-founder of Vestiaire Collective, the leading online fashion resale platform. “Women in Asia invest in luxury fashion, accessories and jewellery, and are very smart shoppers. They like to find unique treasures at great prices,” adding that the average basket value of Hong Kong buyers is US$617, almost double the global average.