Rarely a day goes by without another archive sale being advertised on my Instagram feed. Sure, this is partly to do with the boom in vintage shopping and resale we’ve seen of late, with collectors auctioning off their most treasured pieces and fashion insiders doing a closet detox. But there’s also been a subtle rebrand of the traditional end-of-season sale, too, with brands piggy-backing on the popularity of archival fashion.
“Some designer sales are truly selling archives, while others are selling current seasons,” says Mara Hoffman, who recently held an archive sale – in the truest sense of the term – with Vestiaire Collective, after deciding to close her eponymous brand of 24 years. “It’s important to me that I take responsibility for the inventory that I have, and do everything in my power to keep the things I have made out of landfills.” Bonus: it’s also given customers “the chance to own something that they missed before, or possibly couldn’t afford when it was first offered”.
In some ways, the ubiquity of the archive sale – sometimes branded as a sample sale – is a reflection of the challenging retail landscape right now, particularly for young designers (many of whom were left in debt following the shuttering of Matches earlier this year). But the shift is also a reflection of the changing ways in which we shop: most of us aren’t thinking seasonally anymore, and are instead investing in pieces that will stand the test of time.
Of course, for the likes of Conner Ives, whose signature upcycled styles can be found across all his collections, it makes complete sense to be thinking of his designs in the context of an archive – particularly as he’s literally transforming vintage pieces into highly covetable designs. “We use the term archive sale as a reaction to the breakneck speed that our industry operates at,” the designer explains. “I see the items losing no value after their seasonal period, and I see no shame in trying to sell our stock.”
While Ives doesn’t tend to overproduce his designs, the brand’s archive sales are a way to find homes for pieces that have barely visible faults. “In our production process there are often minor defects, which is mainly where this stock comes from for the archive sale,” he continues. “Either microscopic marks on vintage tees or small holes from wear mean that the product can’t be sent to a retail partner, but we see it as a waste to destroy this stock.”