There is a story the fashion industry tells itself about secondhand, and it is so flattering, so morally convenient, so perfectly shaped to the anxieties of the moment that it has gone almost entirely unexamined. The story goes like this: resale is the corrective. Platforms like Depop, Vinted, and Vestiaire Collective are siphoning demand away from the throwaway economy, extending the life of garments that would otherwise end as waste, and training a new generation of consumers to value quality over quantity.
It is a beautiful story. It is also, at its structural core, directionally misleading, and the consequences of our collective failure to interrogate it will soon be visible in the financials of the brands trying to do better.