As part of the house’s broader mission to become a fully sustainable company, Balenciaga has recently launched the Balenciaga Re-sell Program. This circularity program assists clients in re-selling Balenciaga’s clothing and accessories. To offer customers expert consignment support, the brand has partnered with Reflaunt − a platform that implements circular models for fashion brands. Singapore is the only Asian market involved in the program at the moment – alongside the UK, the US, France and Italy.

Through the Re-sell Program, products can be dropped off at participating Balenciaga stores or collected by a scheduled service available via balenciaga.com. Items are then documented, authenticated, professionally photographed, priced and listed as part of Reflaunt’s worldwide network, which includes more than 25 secondary marketplaces.

Once purchased second-hand, pieces are then shipped to their new homes. For choosing to re-sell, customers are rewarded with monetary compensation or Balenciaga store credit. The credit (a higher amount) can be used to purchase new Balenciaga items in a selection of participating stores.

The brand has tapped into the resale market with the Valentino Vintage project. The initiative saw its start in Oct 2021, when owners of Valentino vintage pieces were encouraged to consign their pieces at selected secondhand shops. In exchange, they received store credit to use on new Valentino collections.

Phase two of the project launched in June 2022, and saw the brand partnering with four international secondhand stores to offer a selection of the vintage garments collected during phase one. Stores selected included Madame Pauline Vintage in Milan, The Vintage Dress in Tokyo, New York Vintage in New York City (pictured) and Resurrection Vintage in Los Angeles.

For the yet-to-be-announced Phase 3, Valentino plans to take the project to fashion schools.

Launched in September 2021, Gucci Vault is an online concept store with ‘virtual shelves’ holding vintage, pre-owned Gucci pieces. These are handpicked by creative director Alessandro Michele and the House’s expert archivists. Each vintage article (such as the vintage ’70s handbag pictured) is one-of-a-kind, only available once and numbered to coincide with the year of the drop – a detail further emphasising its limited availability. Items are delivered in their own unique ‘made to measure’ packaging, specially created to reflect their design.

Gucci Vault also presents monthly drops of rare vintage finds, as well as a regular rotation of exclusive capsules, special collaborations and new brands. The latest releases are highlighted on the dedicated IG account, @guccivault, and its Discord server, Gucci Vault.

Back in 2019, Burberry joined forces with The RealReal to encourage customers to extend the life of their products through resale. The pilot, which launched in Oct that year, saw customers who consigned Burberry pieces at The RealReal being offered an exclusive personal shopping experience in select Burberry stores across the United States.

Besides the resale programme, the brand has expanded a more circular initiatives. In 2020, the ReBurberry Fabric programme was created in collaboration with the British Fashion Council. This saw the brand providing donations of leftover fabrics to fashion students, upcycling surplus fabric and saving it from going to waste. In July 2022, the partnership saw its second run with another donation through the programme. This took the total amount of fabric donated to over 12,000 metres, to more than 30 fashion schools and universities in the UK − including the Edinburgh College of Art and the University of Brighton. The fabric, which includes a variety of materials from past collections, was placed in the hands of young creatives and up-and-coming designers from these schools.