Collecting goods at Vestiaire Collective

Bikerjacket style raincoat, H&M Trend. Dress, Casson London. Python-print Bag, Marc by Marc Jacobs. Shoes, Alexander Wang. Belt, Louis Vuitton; both via Vestiaire Collective

So we’ve established that I don’t even wake up for the fire alarm nowadays, but there was a time – before the dentures – when I’d jolt up a the sound of DOINK from an auction page at dead-hour and basically I’d have about 18 minutes to scramble out of bed and judge whether I’m willing to bid over £11 on a glitchy Playboy Colour. Fast forward a few years later and I’d have all kinds of tricks up my sleeves (i.e search for ‘Channel’ for neglected ‘Chanel’ mis-spells, or bidding on a pair of Chloé pumps in the last 3 seconds and hearing YOU A-HOLE‘s from bidders across the globe), nobody called me a bucktooth loser back then. YUH. But from a certain point it got really tiresome to constantly dig into the double-digit pages and then the keeping on track of items of questionable quality, so I stopped shopping secondhand clothes/accessories online… until I heard about the peer to peer resale platform Vestiaire Collective. What bought me over initially was the fact that all items are made sure of its genuineness and quality by being sent to Paris where they are checked by a team of experts, but their edits are quite clever too especially for squirrels as indecisive as me. So here’s a few I scored: Alexander Wang Abbey heels from forever seasons ago which now happen to be my favourite go-to black heels (the seller of which happened to be one of my lovely readers!), the LV black classic belt and a Jessica Barensfield hammered initials bangle which is part of one of their mini-series. And of course, that designer heels you’ve been saving only for ‘special occasions’ – those impossible-to-walk-in ones, you sure ain’t profiting from cost-per-wear by letting it gather dust on the DVD shelf so you might as well sign up and sell that one off for a piece that’ll be worn more than that one time it came out of the packaging. (yes I’m looking at you, self)