DVF Launches Secondhand With ‘ReWrap’

DVF, the style model launched by designer Diane von Furstenberg in 1972, is making its foray into the resale class.

The model is launching “ReWrap,” a peer-to-peer resale programme with tech start-up Archive on DVF’s e-commerce website.

DVF’s clients will have the ability to store items from the model’s personal archives in addition to purchase and promote pre-owned items amongst each other. They’ll even have entry to a tab referred to as “Missed Connections” that operates like a classifieds web page the place customers put out requests for DVF items they’ve been looking for.

The part will embody a “Diane in Search Of” listing the place the designer herself will put out a name for the items she desires so as to add to her personal closet, together with gadgets from her 2014 Andy Warhol print assortment.

“One of many challenges with resale is figuring out when to listing one thing or matching the demand with the availability that you’ve got,” stated Emily Gittins, Archive’s chief government and co-founder of Archive. “However individuals can really go on to the DVF website and see what different individuals are on the lookout for.”

Branded resale is changing into more and more well-liked amongst trend labels of all types, with retailers together with Shein, Canada Goose, Mara Hoffman and Balenciaga all including secondhand commerce to their shops or web sites in latest months.

Whereas DVF’s dipping its toes into resale with a purely digital providing, the model might develop into completely different fashions, together with leveraging its shops, launching a mail-in program and including new markets, Gittins stated.

“One factor that stands out with this launch is it’s utilizing resale as a solution to showcase the historical past and storytelling across the model’s journey,” she stated.

Recognized for the success of her wrap gown that first hit the market within the Seventies, Diane von Furstenberg’s model had its share of highs and lows within the many years that adopted. The pandemic and new management — in 2021, it named Gabby Hirata as president and Diane’s granddaughter Talita von Furstenberg grew to become co-chairwoman — marked a reset. It shuttered shops and slashed manufacturing by half earlier than making a return to profitability for the primary time in a decade in 2021.