The old is the new ‘new’: Emerging business models in the luxury field: renting and resale

Over the past decade, technological innovations, increased digitalization of customer exchanges and the rise of experiential consumption have revolutionized many industries and resulted in some fundamental restructuring (Holmqvist et al, 2020; Christodoulides et al, 2021). Consumers, especially younger ones, now expect immediacy, availability, and instant gratification, so many logics of fast fashion have also been embraced by the luxury industry. As a generation who grew up digital, they are less enthralled with owning goods, since they are experimenting with ways to access goods besides purchasing, ranging from clothes and music to homes or vehicles. Young people want items that align with their values, desires and identity, and demand a more democratic luxury that is convenient, seamless and flexible. This has resulted in a boom of new means to access luxury; unconventional forms of consumption are emerging, shifting the focus from ‘having-to-being and from owning-to-experiencing’ (Cristini et al, 2017, p.101). After all, we have long shared things with family and friends, and the internet and the sophistication of digital devices, further accelerated by lockdowns, have facilitated commercial sharing and trading among peers (Gibson et al, 2018; Widlok, 2017), contributing to the success of the so-called sharing economy. The sharing economy is an umbrella concept that encompasses several theoretical constructs including collaborative consumption, defined as an economic model based on sharing, second-hand purchasing, and renting or leasing products and services (Iran and Schrader, 2017; Hamari et al, 2015; Möhlmann, 2015; Botsman, 2013). Collaborative consumption involves temporary or permanent consumption and peer-to-peer or business-to-consumer exchanges platforms (Kumar et al, 2018). By integrating the concept of the sharing economy into the clothing sector, collaborative fashion consumption provides consumers with alternative options to the classic model of purchasing garments, and people participate in an organized system of acquisition and distribution of previously owned clothes or accessories for a fee. Moreover, facilitated by technological advances, the secondary market has substantially expanded opportunities for consumers to dispose of apparel while recouping some of their previous investment by reselling or renting still-valuable items (Sihvonen and Turunen, 2016). A good example of this trend is the three-day sale organized by the Kardashian-Jenner sisters with The RealReal, proposing a vast assortment of designer items from their rich closets.