How Mining the Archives Became Fashion’s Go-To Strategy

When the British handbag maker Mulberry re-released the Roxanne in September, customers were just as eager to buy the handbag as they were two decades ago.

That was no surprise to the brand, which had been tracking rising interest in the bag on Mulberry Exchange, the secondhand marketplace it operates. Between the new and vintage Roxannes, Mulberry had a cross-generational hit – a big win for a brand that has seen a steep decline in sales in recent years. The hope is that the Roxanne’s return will also draw customers to newer handbag styles, such as the Hackney, said chief executive Andrea Baldo.

“The older [customers] are receptive to the new iteration and want it along with a new customer, said chief executive Andrea Baldo “This [younger] client … these are the opinion-formers and all brands need to have that especially when they’re trying to reignite interest.”

Mulberry isn’t the only brand that sees a bright future in mining its past. In September, Banana Republic unveiled Banana Republic Archive, a continually updated selection of vintage garments. Luxury labels Chloé and Celine have re-released “it bags” created in the 2000s by Phoebe Philo. At the end of October, Ugg rereleased Fluff Momma boots from 1999 that are fitting for an abominable snowman.

Sneaker brands have always recycled their greatest hits, and both mass and luxury labels lean on their heritage to keep customers coming back. What’s new is the sheer number of items being recreated or sourced directly from the archives and sold to a new generation of shoppers. Brands see an opportunity to hook into booming demand for secondhand fashion and to tap into Y2K and other nostalgia-based trends. They are also playing off of consumers’ perception that clothes, shoes and accessories were made better a generation ago.

This archival strategy is working for many labels, particularly with Gen-Z consumers who are the most likely to shop secondhand and romanticize throwback style trends they didn’t experience the first time around. The goal is rarely to scale a vintage business, but rather to convince these customers to make the leap from a vintage style to a brand’s current offering.

“Inspire them to come into your space, have the experience, and be transported back to that time,” said Marcus Allen, founder of the vintage clothing showroom Society Archive and the curator behind Banana Republic Archive’s first release. “That’s what will lead them to buy that stuff.”

How to Translate Archival Storytelling Into Authentic Commerce

Allen has been collecting American mall brands like Gap and Abercrombie & Fitch since his days working retail as a teenager in the suburbs of Boston. Since launching The Society Archive in 2020, he’s become a go-to curator for magazines, brands and stylists, who seek a nostalgic aughts-era touch from pieces within his showroom. Banana Republic Archive is the biggest project he’s worked on directly with one of the brands he collects.

For the first drop, Allen leaned into Banana Republic’s original travel and safari aesthetic by unearthing items such as a photojournalist vest sold throughout the 1980s. He also styled, and was creative director for, an Archive campaign inspired by the label’s advertising in the 1990s.

It was a lot of work to sell what are essentially one-of-one items. Yet that deeper storytelling is needed to communicate the value of vintage to a broader base of customers who aren’t already speed-running through eBay listings.

Natasha Advani, founder of Not / Applicable, a company that’s curated vintage pop-ups for luxury retailers such as Dover Street Market and Selfridges since 2016, said storytelling is what needs to be prioritised — whether it’s a capsule featuring authentic items, or a reissue.

“It’s about making it into a museum moment so the customer can see and understand why it’s so special,” said Advani. She said the best way to achieve this effect is to work directly with archivists and collectors who know the brand best.

In addition to working with Allen, Banana Republic also integrated Abandoned Republic (a fansite that archived the brand’s catalogues from the 1980s) into its own online vintage platform so that e-commerce shoppers could explore the label’s history while browsing Banana Republic’s past and present offerings.

“It’s a marketer’s dream to have people talking about the brand but more importantly, having that emotional connection to it,” said Banana Republic’s chief marketing officer Meena Anvary.

Similarly, L.L.Bean has explored vintage capsules since 2020 by working mostly with Brian M. Davis, founder of the vintage Americana showroom and menswear label Wooden Sleepers. Hillary Thompson, L.L.Bean’s senior manager of social media and product partnerships, said Davis’ authentic connection to L.L. Bean’s larger vintage community allows the brand to maintain its own credibility within it. It’s also why the brand’s currently not engaging with its secondhand market in a larger way — like through a buyback program — and sticking to small vintage capsules or newer products inspired by its heritage.

“We see our vintage products really as inspiration and not necessarily as inventory,” said Amanda Hannah, L.L. Bean’s head of external communications and brand engagement. “We like keeping them separate because there are these great collectors and curators who tell a fantastic story that lends that authenticity to it. We don’t feel the need to really commercialise that.”

It’s tempting for brands to constantly replay their greatest hits. That can pay off in the short term, but damage a brand over time as customers sense a lack of newness. Nike’s recent sales slide was widely seen as the product of a reliance on re-released retro hits at the expense of innovative new releases.

But if your primary business is selling new clothes, vintage likely will work best as a niche.

“To truly go after the luxury or high-end vintage market, you would have to design a program that was attractive on both sides of the equation,” said Terry Boyle, chief executive of Trove, which operates branded resale platforms for Allbirds, Canada Goose and others.

Mulberry’s secondhand programme, where customers can trade in bags for store credit remains a tiny part of the brand’s business, at 1 percent of UK sales. Baldo said there’s plenty of room to expand on that.

“The buying of pre-loved products, resale, is all a part of the client’s actual journey with the brand,” said Baldo. “And for that reason, quality and longevity has a huge value on resale. So if you pack this into our strategy, we just see this channel growing.”