Born and raised in the Champagne region of France, Sophie Hersan grew up idolizing Azzedine Alaïa, Claude Montana, Thierry Mugler, Karl Lagerfeld and models like Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss. Although her degree is in Economic Science, she changed paths post-graduation to pursue her love of luxury fashion.
In a small Parisian apartment, Hersan, along with five partners, shared a vision for what is now the luxury resale empire, [Vestiaire Collective](https://us.vestiairecollective.com/?gclid=CjwKCAiA3OzvBRBXEiwALNKDP1vgnbqQhNyYCgWbl5mO62W-4-gK3AVTOlUrxB9TEa4ZKM9x14kv5RoCAVAQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds). In 2009, the birth of Vestiaire was a reaction to the rapid change in fashion consumption: buying more and wearing less. With the rise of social media and fast-fashion, Vestiaire hoped to create a sustainable solution to cope with an excess of fashion waste. Offices in Paris, London, New York, Milan, Berlin and Hong Kong provide an opportunity for nine million-plus users to extend the lifespan of their pre-loved items.
As Vestiaire Collective recently celebrated its tenth anniversary, I spoke with Fashion Director, Sophie Hersan discussing the company’s past present and future.
Sophie Hersan.
**_Congratulations on your tenth anniversary! How does it feel to have come this far?_**
The market is much more mature than it was ten years ago. I found that it's accelerating now, but it took a long time to educate the market and lead the consumers. It's quite a life, ten years, and we started with passion and convictions. We didn't know at the time if we would be at the right time or right place. Of course you have a vision for ten, twenty years. But now, I have the impression that we brought something to this industry. We are not the only platform, but we were one of the first in this market. So we are proud of it. Of course, we didn't succeed alone, we were six at the beginning, and we are three now. Myself and Fanny Moizant, my business partner who moved to Hong Kong to launch APAC, were joined by Max Bittner, as our CEO in January. Max hails from Lazada in Asia, so it's quite a different culture,and very tech-based. This brought a new speed in innovation that we needed at Vestiaire Collective. Fanny has kept the role of the brand around the values of fashion, around everything that's happening in this industry while maintaining the our DNA. My role as a Fashion Director is to extend our fashion DNA as a tech company. It's quite a bit of change, but it's really exciting. It's exhilarating today to think about the next ten years.
**_You grew up idolizing the work of Alaïa, Montana, Mugler, Lagerfeld, and models such as Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss. How did that fuel your love of luxury fashion and eventual path towards the industry?_**
I'm 46 now, and I was inspired by the 90's when I was 17 years old. I think my first inspiration was probably my mother because she was elegant and quite chic, but didn't live in Paris. I think through her hard work and love for aestheticism, I discovered designers such as Saint Laurent, Christian Dior, and tailors, you know, no branding. It's the first time I had these emotions about creativity and the work of a designer.
Then I moved to Paris to study economics. I had the chance to attend a fashion show, and I remember having the feeling that it's what I want to do, that I must be here. It brought me back to the vision of my mother and whatever she inspired in me. I am also very sentimental towards vintage pieces because I was always attracted to vintage jewelry and accessories from a young age. Then I studied fashion in Paris, and I graduated from there. I learned a lot from working with the assistant for Alaïa and the knit designer for Dior. I found their work really modern. They taught me a lot, and they taught me about luxury and modernity. During those fifteen years, I was passionate about this industry. I was where I wanted to be. It is still an industry that makes people dream, but I always had one foot in, and one foot out. I was conscious of the fact that it felt like a dream, but it was a lot of work.
Then, I started to get bored, and my inspiration started to decrease. For creative people, if you find that you get bored, you have to move away. That's how Vestiaire Collective began because we started to see the traditional industries as too static and too snobby. That's how I met Sebastian Fabre, one of our co-founders, who came from Microsoft, and we began to think about how to form Vestiaire Collective. We built the team with different skills: one was an expert in logistics, one in tech, Fanny was marketing and communication, and I was fashion. The whole team was really strong with different skills and the same entrepreneurial mindset. More than ten years ago, we found that it all started with the simple question: Why are there so many items in our wardrobe? We only wear 40% of our wardrobes, so 60% is waste. It was a crisis, and there was a lot of passive consumption, it was just incredible. So we came up with a way to sell, so that you could then invest. Sell, buy, rotate; it's circular. We talked about rotation rather than accumulation and we sourced three thousand items from our friends and family. Then we launched Vestiaire de Copine— that was the original name. In English, it doesn't quite translate, but it means our friends' wardrobes.
What was important at the beginning of Vestiaire Collective was to be inspiring. We wanted to select the best in fashion, and we wanted to photograph the best in fashion. Vintage, luxury, contemporary, you know— not everyone wears Dior. So there was a focus on how people consume: buy less, buy better, better quality, and reduce waste. This was the start of Vestiaire Collective. Then we changed the name because in France it works, but we expanded and now have many members in the UK, Europe, Asia and America. That's why we changed the name two years later to Vestiaire Collective. We grew and came to the US in 2014, then Hong Kong, India, Singapore, and Australia in 2017. We are now shipping all over the world, and are focused on how to do so more sustainably. We have three logistical groups dedicated to reducing our carbon footprint and the impact of shipping.
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**_What are your thoughts on the current fashion climate? Even though fast fashion is on the decline, there are still new ones popping up all the time. And add the whole sustainability nightmare of that as well. What are your thoughts as far as where our industry exists right now?_**
You are right; fast fashion is declining. Secondhand is predicted to grow 1.5 times more than fast fashion. But we still consume 400% more clothing than in the past two decades. That's enormous. I think the consumer has changed faster than the industry, and we can see today how we change. What changed first is the consumer and now the industry has to respond to the consumer. Of course, now we have to be globally conscious about how we are the most polluting industry. How are we going to work together to do better? First part is the environment. How to be better for the planet, but also how to answer to the consumer change. Ten years ago, the consumer was looking for reasonable prices on luxury, and we democratized the luxury market, and now people think '_how can I consume better?_' That's what changed. Now, the industry has to adapt to this new consumer. Gen Z and the millennials who are today, 50% of the consumers, should also adjust. They don't have a choice anymore. And now, I think the new modern resale industry is emerging because we are all in the same ecosystem. So how do we do this together? Vestiaire Collective is just in the middle, it's one piece of the puzzle. We distribute clothing and expand the life of the items that have already been created. If you expand a piece of clothing's life by just 9 months, you reduce 30-40% of its waste, water, and carbon footprints.
**_GlobalData reported that in the past three years, the resale fashion market is growing 21 times faster than the retail market. Has this increase been evident in Vestiaire? How do you envision the growth of this industry in the coming years?_**
About 51% of consumers plan to spend more on second hand in the next five years. We talk about the boom in the resale market. It's true, it's 20% growth year on year, versus 3% to the core and luxury market. So it's a fact. In terms of figures, it will double from 21 billion to 50 billion in 2025. We know that it's key to grow and prevent any increase in textile and clothing waste.
Vestiaire Collective was founded on three pillars. Community— first, we started trying to select the best for the community. Ten years ago, we helped to inspire the trends, and now we know that the community is inspiring the trends, so we followed. Now we focus on improving the quality of pieces on our platform. We use a lot of data people don't think about. We need to tell consumers what is selling quickly and in demand. The quality of our inventory also instills trust. Community, trust, and inspiration are why our community connects with us. Now they're inspiring each other, and through new social features on our app we see our community continue to grow.
**_What're the criteria for desirable pre-owned fashion? How do you measure the quality and authenticity at Vestiaire?_**
Two things: data, followed by curation. Data gives us information about what is in demand. It's a marriage between supply and demand efficiently. We follow precisely what the trends are in the first-hand market since 65% of items on our site are rarely worn or unworn. In the beginning, we refused 50% of the catalog to build a strong curation. Now, we can accept more pieces. We want our community to be the trendsetter now, and we help find what they're looking for from someone else in the world.
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**_Does Vestiaire plan on opening any physical locations in the near future?_**
We recently opened our permanent boutique in Selfridges. I think that they match our values around sustainability and innovation. They understand better than anyone that people are looking to consume differently. They were looking for a Vestiaire drop off, but we ended up opening a permanent boutique after initially starting as a pop-up. We're really proud of this partnership with Selfridges because they value our company. Now, the secondhand market is something cool. We did a lot of pop-ups before, but we prefer to partner with industry players rather than doing things alone. As I said before, we are a puzzle and everybody should work together. So we did some partnerships with brands to this mechanism, and we will expand these partnerships into the luxury markets also. With the luxury markets, it's difficult, and it was more difficult ten years ago. They ignored the second hand market. But now they see how big it is, and they can't do without it.
Being present in Selfridges is really important to connect with our community, to drive change. Also, to get new consumers that still don't know that secondhand can be a fantastic experience because 60% of people are looking for something that they can't find anymore. Even if we have multiplication of collections, we also have very small editions sometimes. So even if it's sold out or if it's a rare piece, they can find it secondhand. They can find the original Celine, the original Gaultier. The consumer wants more and more qualitative and authentic products. So I think that we answer what they are looking for today.
**_As Fashion Director, you are responsible for defining the voice of your company in relation to the industry. How would you describe that voice?_**
We are an actor in the ecosystem of fashion, and we are a tech company. So my verse is to say: we challenge ourselves to do better, but we protect the consumer and also try to expand new items. Trust is important in the industry, and this is my role. Also, innovation because we still come from a disruptor standpoint, and we need to educate and provide messages today around sustainability. We try to do the best as possible to protect and understand this industry and work better together.
**_What's new and what's next for Vestiaire?_**
The community is key. We are now really working on these tools to connect. The expansion is still essential for us. Now we are in Asia, and there is a good supply there that people are looking for. Secondhand is not as big in Asia, so when we launched in Hong Kong, it was really new for them. As soon as you wear something, you don't wear it anymore. So it's about education, education, education. Every time we launch a new deal, we have to educate. A long time ago, we had to teach Italy, and so on. Less so the UK and the US; they're more aware of secondhand because, physically, there are a lot of brick-and-mortar secondhand shops. The next significant change will be the digital and the professionalization of the growing market on platforms.
We still need to be connected with reality, and the community gives the reality. The new world works totally different than the world before. So, it's really accelerated and is going to continue to do so. The industry will most likely shift again. Together, I expect that we will achieve all that we want and where we want to be; To do so genuinely, and honestly with the consumer.
Sophie Hersan.
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