The RealReal’s 2025 resale report reveals resale is today’s primary fashion frontier — from worn-in luxury to bridal vintage, heel resurgence, and archival department store revival.
At the very top of The RealReal’s eighth annual resale report lies a stark cultural shift: resale has transformed from an alternate shopping route into the mode by which many now discover, shop, and relate to fashion. In fiscal terms, The RealReal now moves one million SKUs through its system a month, compared with just 200,000 SKUs a year for a traditional retailer—a massive leap in scale that “upends the sense that something is good for the time that it’s good,” The RealReal’s Chief Brand Officer Kristen Naiman told Vogue.
Innovation in fashion consumption is being tracked in searches tied to creative leadership changes. Following Jonathan Anderson’s announcement of his departure from Loewe, searches soared 488 percent, while Demna’s move to collaborate with Gucci led to a 310‑percent jump in his name. In contrast, Donatella Versace’s exit nudged searches up only 13 percent, and Glenn Martens’s appointment at Maison Margiela produced a mere seven percent increase.
Yet even brands without headline creative shifts are experiencing remarkable attention. Searches for Coach climbed 160 percent, for Ferragamo 129 percent, and for Pucci 110 percent compared with the previous year.
Wear, rewear, repeat
Sales data tell a compelling story. Items listed as Fair Condition — those showing heavy wear — are up 32 percent this year, fueled by a 40‑percent increase in new buyers. Since launching in spring 2024, “As Is” items, which may require repair, have seen sales rise month after month.
“It’s an upending of, say, ten years ago, when it was like, logo, logo, logo, pristine, pristine, pristine, and it suggests that people are open to this idea of patina and backstory as a way to indicate provenance,” says Naiman. “The provenance [now] is the life that somebody lived in it, and if the thing is thrashed, but in the most perfect way, there’s something about that that says it’s well‑lived. It’s not, like, well‑acquired, and that, to me, is super interesting.”
Bags with visible signs of wear are trending — in particular, Chanel up 15 percent and Balenciaga up 22 percent. Vintage icons like the Chloé Paddington and Celine Phantom bags are also surging, hinting that luxury brands may soon lean toward reissues rather than innovation.
Bridal fashion is experiencing its own resurgence. Searches for wedding dresses are up 247 percent, vintage engagement rings are up 198 percent, wedding shoes are up 321 percent, and “vintage wedding” searches have climbed 121 percent.
“It used to be that you couldn’t have somebody else’s wedding dress. You had to have the one that was made for you, that allowed you to think of yourself as a protagonist at this particular moment in your life, and it was unique to you,” Naiman said. “Now we’re seeing these huge surges in searches for wedding dresses that people wear and then re‑consign. It’s a shift towards the sense of the communal or the collective. I actually feel, in a lot of ways, that resale is the oldest behavior. It’s what we always did forever: resell, reuse things, repurpose them, repair them. It’s almost, like, same behavior, new delivery mechanism.”
This signifies more than a trend—it’s a cultural embrace of shared stories told through heirloom style, and anticipates a wave of bridalwear influence in upcoming designer collections.
Glamour makes its return
The footwear landscape is also transforming. Kitten‑heel searches dropped 16 percent, while high heels rose 26 percent. Searches for luxury brands saw spikes: Louboutins 34 percent, Manolo Blahniks 24 percent, Dolce & Gabbana 29 percent, and Giuseppe Zanotti 45 percent.
“We still have a bunch of sort of quiet luxury brands that are doing okay, but it’s neck‑and‑neck with a huge spike in jewelry and a really big spike in high heels,” Naiman notes. “I could think endlessly about the way that that’s connected to the aesthetics of our current political moment, but it’s undeniable that there’s a blingy, glamorous, overt thing that’s happening.”
These hints suggest that styles may lean into ostentation this spring—think neon, shimmer, and unapologetic boldness, evoking an ’80s bright‑lights energy.
Naiman also points to an emerging fascination with historic private‑label lines from storied department stores like Barneys and Bonwit Teller. Though not reflected in numerical data, she shares that many customers have set search alerts for these names. “To me, an increase in these kinds of searches reflects what savvy customers are bringing to the secondary market,” she says, noting that private labels once produced in the same factories as European houses now deliver high‑quality materials at accessible price points.
This recall of classic Americana may translate into tailored blazers, vintage denim, and elevated wardrobe essentials infused with history.
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