Resale clothing market caters to fans of cult status designers

NEW YORK -- The $49,450 sale of a Charles James couture evening dress at an April 24 William Doyle Galleries auction was unprecedented for a designer from the second half of the 20th century.

But as surprising to those who don't regularly wield a paddle were the Hermes bags, Chanel jewels and Judith Leiber clutches from the last decade that went for close to the original price.

So, might there be such a thing as investment dressing after all? Outside the auction house, the recent rise of the resale store suggests there is.

The new version is hardly the mothball-redolent thrift shop of the past. Sheryl Crowe is on the soundtrack, preferred-client lists document designer favorites, and a hefty selection of designer names are on the racks.

Depending on the day, there is as much Jil Sander, Prada and Chanel at Ina in SoHo, at Renate on the Upper East Side, at Out of Our Closet in Chelsea or at Allan & Suzi on the Upper West Side as there is at the average designer boutique. And resale today is a rarefied world: Customers ask for a designer by name and for particular seasons, with a vast breadth of knowledge.

"They'll say: `This is 1982 spring Gaultier. I've got to have it,'" said Ina Bernstein, who opened her store, Ina, at 101 Thompson St. three years ago.

Mary Kavanagh, who ran the Chanel boutique at Bloomingdale's and Bergdorf Goodman's personal shopping service, opened a resale shop, Kavanagh, in February at 146 East 49th St., with antiques and preowned Chanel, Gianni Versace, James Galanos and Geoffrey Beene for less than $1,000.

"When you walk into my shop, it's like walking into a Madison Avenue boutique," Kavanagh said. "The whole environment, presentation and quality of what is being offered is changing."

Terin Fischer, a former buyer for Barneys New York, opened Out of Our Closet at 136 West 18th St., a block from Barneys' Chelsea store.

What has emerged from all these ventures, along with a new style of running the consignment business, is a vigorous resale market for designers who have reached cult status. These shops contend that people buy designer labels to wear as collectors buy art, monitoring the entry of each new piece on the market.

"It shows people are looking at fashion with a sense of connoisseurship, which I've always experienced working with the clothes at auction," said Caroline Rennolds Milbank, the couture specialist at William Doyle Galleries.

"I think the fashion industry has such a low opinion of its client that that aspect has been missed. It's a very interesting change, because I think it shows loyalty to a designer in a different way than you would have seen before."

She compared it to that of billionaires in the technology business buying Mickey Mouse memorabilia instead of impressionist paintings. "It's people spending money on what it is they like," she said.

In a market in which designer labels are bought cautiously by retail stores, there is often a scarcity of signature looks.

A resale shop may be the first place where a collector of favorites can find certain pieces by Comme des Garcons, Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Vivienne Westwood, Azzedine Alaia, Stephen Sprouse, Geoffrey Beene, Thierry Mugler, Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, Romeo Gigli and Isaac Mizrahi.

Most resale stores keep lists of clients who actively collect creations of those designers.

Designer resale is a business born of customers who aren't as interested in trends as they are in designer vision. A 10-year-old piece by a designer they believe in is more valuable than the hot label of the moment. In addition, designer prices have given investment dressing a whole new meaning.

"Investment dressing is terminology invented by retailers to justify our overspending and spending fortunes on our backs in the 1980s," said Sandy Schreier, a couture collector and appraiser. "I don't think people in the `90s find it as justifiable as they did then."

Schreier, who never wears her voluminous collection of couture, recently examined her closet full of designer ready-to-wear that she bought in the 1980s and decided she had to divest. She even opted to get rid of her lucky Karl Lagerfeld suit, in which she was photographed by Art and Antiques magazine.

From her home in Detroit she called a nationwide sampling of resale stores and found that those in New York and Los Angeles are the best buyers.

She is not alone in her quest for a good price at resale. New tax laws have made the Internal Revenue Service tough on once lucrative deductions on clothes given to museums, fashion schools and charities.

"As an appraiser, what I'm supposed to do is appraise them for fair market value," she said. "Those are the key words with the new tax laws. This has killed everyone."

A $3,000 suit for which donors would once give themselves a $2,000 deduction now must be appraised for its value at auction or for the amount it would bring at resale, she said. Consignment shops are profiting from people who don't want to take that meager deduction.

Ina, for instance, has rare finds like World's End shorts designed by Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, a flowered Comme des Garcons trench coat with fabric by Junya Watanabe and a Pucci cashmere-and-silk dress.

Bernstein regularly attends the William Doyle auctions, where it is not uncommon for Zhandra Rhodes, Rudy Gernreich, Giorgio di Sant'Angelo or Halston to be on sale, even as they are in New York's resale shops.

Bernstein carefully edits her store, adding good vintage pieces in the mix. "Pre-edited is the new way to do resale shops," she said.

Milbank, of William Doyle, said there are two ways to buy for investment purposes.

"If people want their current wardrobe to be worth something, they should buy the great classics," she said. "If they're looking 30 years into the future, to sell their clothes for their children to pay for college, they should buy more unusual things."

Which is why she recommends investing in landmark collections, like Christian Lacroix's first for Patou.

It is perceived scarcity that drives much of the resale business.

"In the case of Moschino and Giorgio di Sant'Angelo, when they passed away, everyone was looking for that stuff," said Suzi Kandel, who owns Allan & Suzi with Allan Pollack. "They become like artists. They're the new Picassos."

Allan & Suzi, at Columbus Avenue and 80th Street, even have a local-access home shopping show, on Mondays at 9 p.m. on Channel 35.

After nine years in business, Pollack notes a big change.

"In the `80s, people would brag, `I spent $5,000 for this Alaia,'" he said. "Now they brag, `I only spent $100.' And this is from the upper echelon of our customers."

It is all proof, he said, that the long history of the powerful marketing of designers has succeeded.

"The designer label is more than still alive," he said. "The designer label means everything. It is an investment, for those who buy it now and can sell it again, and those who give it up."

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