First Love Island, now London Fashion Week: Ebay is developing a penchant for using prime-time pop culture moments as a Trojan horse for pre-loved fashion.
Tonight, the resale platform will stage the second of its twin ‘Endless Runway’ events — live, shoppable secondhand catwalks streamed first from New York and now London, in partnership with the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) and the British Fashion Council (BFC), respectively.
For Ebay, this is part of a bid to spread awareness of and elevate pre-loved fashion, spearheaded by general manager of global fashion Kirsty Keoghan and pre-loved style director Amy Bannerman, who was appointed last year. This approach is tried and tested: when Ebay replaced the fast fashion sponsors of reality dating show Love Island in 2022, searches for “pre-loved fashion” grew by 1,600 per cent and searches for “sustainable fashion” increased by 7,000 per cent. The common thread, Keoghan says, is pushing secondhand into the mainstream, where it’s impossible to ignore. “Most people are on their phones all the time, and there are multiple things they could be looking at. This is an opportunity for us to grab them and put pre-loved at the forefront of their minds.”
Like the clothes, the concept isn’t new. Global charity Oxfam has been hosting a secondhand fashion show during London Fashion Week for years, albeit not on the official schedule. This year’s star-studded affair, which is also happening today as part of Oxfam’s broader ‘Secondhand September’ campaign, will be co-hosted with Ebay rival Vinted.
However, it comes at an inflection point for resale, which is becoming evermore visible (notably, luxury resale site Vestiaire Collective was featured in Netflix hit Emily in Paris in August).
Ebay’s runway events are among a series of activations aimed at meeting consumers where they are, in a bid to intercept drivers of overconsumption. Non-profit The Or Foundation took out a billboard in Times Square during New York Fashion Week to highlight the issue of textile waste. Elsewhere, resale technology firm Archive has invited around 20 of its brand partners to take part in Secondhand September this year. Brands including Diane von Furstenberg, Sandro and Ulla Johnson will make pre-loved fashion available in their physical stores throughout the month, while others — such as Oscar de la Renta, The North Face and Christy Dawn — will run discounts and promotions online.
Celebrating archival fashion
Ebay’s event is pegged to the 40th anniversary of London Fashion Week, a perfect chance to look back at designers and collections past, says Bannerman. The collection spans eras and price points, from £24 to £1,000. It’s an intentional mishmash of archival Alexander McQueen and “random men’s pyjama pants”, where Wales Bonner’s football-inspired Adidas collection and a Mulberry Bayswater handbag sit alongside a university sweater and a Cub Scouts blanket adorned with activity badges. “I wanted the collection to look like Ebay. To me, that means buying within a price range, where expensive stuff is styled with super rare and nostalgic stuff,” Bannerman explains. “That’s how everyone I know shops, and it really embodies the diversity of London fashion. Ebay is for everybody — that’s something I’m always keen to push.”
Bannerman and her team sourced some pieces specifically for the show, but others have been in their growing archive for a while, waiting for the right outing. There’s a pair of chaps that were originally purchased for Love Island, a jacquard Burberry coat Bannerman says she “had to buy” when it was listed for £50 last year, and a rare Stella McCartney Smile knit that her neighbour helped clean a coffee stain out of. The pieces will be available to shop on Ebay as they go down the runway, with additional secondhand edits dropping daily after the show ends.