‘I make £4k a month by raiding charity shops’

Young entrepreneurs are hunting down cheap designer clothes and selling items at huge mark-ups, writes Lauren Almeida

Move over fast fashion – secondhand clothing is cool again. And entrepreneurs from Generation Z are making a mint, reselling designer items bought on the cheap at huge mark-ups on new online marketplaces, today’s digital car boot sales.

Many of these young sellers are buying old clothes by the kilo and trawling through charity shops in well-heeled areas with an eagle eye to what will sell. They have clocked that it’s young buyers being drawn to environmentally friendly credentials and a “vintage” aesthetic that has catapulted it into the mainstream.

Dexter Burgess-Hunt, a 26-year-old from Manchester, has built a business by buying stock in bulk from charity shops and wholesalers, and picking out the best pieces. “I once found a Louis Vuitton T-shirt for £2 and sold it for £220,” he said. “That was my best sale. It might seem unusual to some people, but people pay for what they think is valuable.”

Depop, a website bought by the American e- commerce business Etsy earlier this year, acts as both a marketplace and as a social media site, with sellers amassing thousands of followers. Others use Vinted, the secondmost popular site in Britain. Items from the late 1990s and early 2000s are the most popular on Depop. This is where sellers make the highest margins, said Jack Richardson, another 26-year-old from Manchester.

He works full- time as an underwriter, selling items on Depop on the side. “I found a Versace shirt in a second- hand shop in Manchester,” he said. “I knew it was great, it just needed a steam. So I bought it for £3.50 and sold it for £60. To be hon