“You can go onto any third-party platform, and you can buy whatever you want,” says Liana Satenstein, a former Vogue staffer who organized Chloë Sevigny’s much-discussed closet sale last summer. “Resale has become almost akin to fast fashion.”
Online shopping—even secondhand—is starting to lose its spark for some. “I think the web has kind of neutered my shopping experience,” Satenstein admits. “I’m not a brick-and-mortar shopper because I already have a specific idea of what I want going in, and the internet has been the easiest way for me to find things.” So when Satenstein arrived at Sevigny’s Sale of the Century at 6:30 on the morning of the event, she was shocked to see that people were already lining up—eventually circling the block twice and flooding social media.
Satenstein, who notes that the thrill of resale shopping is dying, distills the appeal of the sale. “Obviously they’re there for the clothes, but they’re there for the essence of the clothes,” she says. “People want stories behind their clothing, and they want to experience something.” Of course, it helps when you’re selling clothes belonging to somebody famous—especially somebody with a singular sense of style.
Roche seconds this idea of bottling fame, or, at least, fame adjacency. “You get to shop the closets of these incredibly groundbreaking, powerful, trailblazing, influential women who are pioneers in their industries, and you get to take a little piece of magic from their world,” she says.
Online retailers are looking to capture a piece of this magic too. In October, The RealReal hosted a celebrity sale, drawing from the closets of high-profile stars—including Kate Moss, Julianne Moore, Tessa Thompson, Sophia Bush, Laura Harrier, Annabelle Dexter-Jones, and Ivy Getty—to amplify the company‘s environmental efforts. “We have so many high-profile women regularly consigning with us privately,” says Rati Sahi Levesque, president and COO of The RealReal. “It’s exciting to put names to items for an important cause, launching a public sale with clothing, shoes, handbags, and accessories from the closets of so many fashion icons.”
The celebrity sale was a success by Levesque’s account. “The sale included over 300 items, ranging in price from $95 to $9,295, and nearly half of those items sold out in week one,” she says. “Kate Moss’s Longchamp jacket, Julianne Moore’s Chanel bag, and Tessa Thompson’s sequin Miu Miu dress all sold within hours of launch.” Levesque is optimistic that, thanks to the positive reaction from the brand’s shoppers, there will be more celebrity sales to come.