What used to be the territory of car-boot diehards and charity shop hunters has evolved into one of the most powerful movements in global fashion. As we recently covered, vintage is the new luxury. In 2023, sales of pre-owned clothing rose 18% to hit $197 billion, with forecasts suggesting the market could reach $367 billion by 2029. By the end of the decade, resale could be twice the size of fast fashion.

The drivers are many – fading stigma, economic precarity, a growing emphasis on personal style, sustainability – but the real revolution is technological. Since the late 1990s, platforms like eBay, Etsy, Depop, Grailed, Vinted and Vestiaire Collective have turned resale into a social and cultural infrastructure: a place where wardrobes become liquid assets, personal taste becomes public content and the past becomes infinitely searchable.

Despite their scale and reach, resale platforms remain curiously underexamined. More than marketplaces, they’re mirrors reflecting contemporary culture – spaces where capital, identity and desire converge.

Here are 10 reflections on what resale platforms reveal about how we live, shop and express ourselves today:

1) From Grunge to Grailed