This Diwali bring your favourite luxury brand home at half the prices. Find out how

Do you fancy wearing a Sabyasachi sari this Diwali? Do you feel like pairing it up with a GUCCI clutch? That would cost you a minimum of Rs 3 lakh. What if you get it for half the price this festive season? No there isn’t a sale happening around. The budget fashionistas are just embracing the idea of pre-owned luxury.

Enter Confidential Couture. Offering a wide range of coveted products from brands like Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Hermés, etc, all of which comes with a guarantee on its authenticity, all products on the website are curated and priced on the basis of their condition.

“The condition guide varies from never been used, gently used to a fairly used product. We gather products from various sources; be it a shopping spree in New York or an over-flowing wardrobe of a fashionista. Confidential Couture aims to simplify the concept of luxury by creating a loyal hub of buyers and sellers and making luxury affordable.  People can get the next guaranteed authentic designer handbag at a great price or get a good deal for the last season's purchase,” said Anvita Mehra, Founder, Confidential Couture.

To make the deal even better Confidential Couture also provide services like private viewing and handbag cleansing for their clients.

Cut to Stage3. Another platform with similar services and more Stage3 has a special section devoted to pre-owned fashion. Christened S3 shop, it acts as an omni channel marketplace where users can sell their gently worn designer outfits and monetize their wardrobe and buyers can get up to 80% off on a great selection of designer wear collection. In addition to this Stage3 also features a flash sales store where new designer sample pieces and excess inventories are sold.

If you get lucky S3 Shop also stocks new sample pieces and gently used outfits from well-known designers such as Manish Malhotra, Sabyasachi Mukherjee, Ridhima Bhasin and RidhiMehra.  “A lot of these silhouettes have been worn by India’s leading celebrities like Deepika Padukone, Malaika Arora and Diana Penty, amongst many others,” said Sanchit Baweja, co-founder and chief business officer at Stage3.

Stage 3 presently operates in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune, Jaipur, Lucknow, Nagpur, Ahmedabad and Ludhiana.

These two are however not the only players in the segment. Surging demand has led to more and more providers venturing into the category. There is another player Luxepolis with similar services offering options from brands like Omega, Prada, Cartier, Dior, Chiara Ferragni, Montblanc and others.

How it works

As a seller, one can just log on to these websites and fill a form with the products they wish to sell and its details so that their values can be determined.

"We require our customers to upload a minimum of 4 images of the item they wish to sell or consign. Within 3-5 business days after sending us the item information, they receive a custom price range in which their product fits in. We can get their products picked up personally from their desired location (Nationwide pick up service) or they can send it directly to us. The final price determination and product analysis along with the first round of authenticity checks are done in person by our experts after which a consignment contract is signed between Confidential Couture and the customers for a period of 3 months,” said Mehra.

At Confidential Couture before the product can be listed on the website, the product goes through examination by their authenticating partners in the US, bio-cleansing (if necessary) and professional photography which usually takes up to 2 weeks.

The sellers get paid once their items are sold, earning up to 70% of the value of the item. “In some cases, we also do instant cash buyouts based on the demand of certain items,” she added.

India loves pre-owned luxury? Perhaps

Catering mostly to the millennials, pre-owned luxury is a lucrative option for those between 18-35 who aspire to have global fashion in their wardrobe but do not want to burn a hole in their pockets.

“A millennial luxury consumer wants to definitely experience luxury but is questioning the need to spend a large sum of money on the most recent goods with no clear value proposition besides being one of the first few to own it. This is, in turn, encouraging them to look elsewhere, especially towards the pre-owned luxury sector. Pre-loved clothes are cost-effective and make for a highly sensible purchase-decision, which highly resonates with our value-conscious millennial customers,” said Baweja.

What's next?

Innovating never stops in fashion. With pre-owned luxury becoming more familiar fashionistas now want more. So what’s next? Customization is the answer. Most of these players are getting into personalisation and monogramming onto fashion accessories.

This means one can turn any piece into distinctive, one of a kind, works of art by having a design or the initials custom-painted on them.

Still can’t buy it? Rent it

If you are the kind who wouldn’t want to repeat an outfit or if you are still in college but still want to wear a designer wear to Diwali party this year you can rent your designer wear.  Stage3 and Flyrobe are  players in the rental space that would rent out anything from a gown to a lehenga and even a tuxedo.