I think this is the last hurrah
A shortlist of outfit ideas from the 9th month, for the very hot heat (styled using Croissant -- the platform that guarantees buyback on various items)
This newsletter is brought to you by Croissant, a new kind of resale experience.
The heat doesn’t really bother me, which I think is because it doesn’t feel like an impediment to my style. I get frustrated in the winter, when the practical limitations imposed by the weather make it impossible to wear inconvenient shoes. What I want is, for example, a mesh slipper or flip flops, sheer socks and wood-sole sandals to stylistically thin out a pair of heavy trousers or jeans, but I can do that only at the risk of losing some toes to the cold, which doesn’t seem worth it.
Summer’s much easier in this way. Any pair of shoes is fair game. But as destiny would have it for me, mere weeks into the season and away from when I am due to give birth, I injured my foot and for the last week and change, have been wearing a Cam-boot (this thing) around. My reaction to the boot has only surprised me in that I did not expect how much rage would be on the other side of not looking exactly how I want — down to the stupidly perfect, dainty shoe. Do you ever find this too? Rage as the feeling that comes in between you and something you want, either to have or to do?
Anyway, this feels like 🤰🏻the last hurrah🤰🏻, you know? A shortlist of outfit ideas for the very hot heat.
Each look revolves around a specific item that I pinpointed using Croissant — it’s an extension you add to your browser, which then follows you through the commerce websites that you visit, mostly staying quiet until you land on the product page of something you like, or maybe it’s something you already have. At this point, Croissant either lures you into buying the thing by calculating a buyback price (the platform will literally guarantee a buyback price, which lasts for one year and buy the thing back if you decide to sell it) or if you already have it, maybe it lures you into selling it to them.
These mesh shoes from The Row, for example — a perfect accomplice to the towel skirt (La Veste) and a crinkled linen top from the turkish brand, Anim — retail for $690. Croissant says they’ll buy them back for $214, which might not be as good a deal as your selling them on TRR for, say, $500, but then again, the commission TRR charges is hefty, the pricing is volatile, and you have until this time next year to recover that $214. Not bad if you calculate cost-per-wear and assume you’ll wear them at least 50 times (I will, and probably at the risk of incurring a new stress fracture).
The next look revolves around this Pucci dress (which was $750 when I got it, not sure how the price climbed to $900 but here, this one is $60 less and kind of a better print).
I have worn the hell out of it this summer to: tour Rome, eat dinner, walk around New York City. Most recently, I wore it for a 4th of July BBQ on the beach. It’s great styled with a button down over (black or white are my preferences, but a curveball like this [get $177 back]/this [get $70 back] works too) or an open-hem sweater. Mostly I’ve worn it with shoes like this/this and if I were to sell it in the event that, idk, it just stopped hitting the same way postpartum, it would earn me back $315.
If I threw in the shoes, another $327. It’s fun and fine to use the extension this way, but I’m much more intrigued by the kind of research you can do, hopping from site to site, analyzing what different products are commanding from this third party system setting another new market standard.
It’s like if The Real Real made shopping certain brands retail all the more worthwhile because you could actually sell your stuff back and make more than you paid, could Croissant do the same thing for different brands?
Some questions I’ve tried to infer answers to: Do any particular brands unanimously command a better buyback than others? (A $2,900 Loewe jacket will get you back more than 50%, ditto that rate for a pair of cargo pants, whereas a halter top from the slightly less hyped brand, Dries van Noten will command a bit less than like, 30% — no matter the price differentiation across platforms). What categories are best to sell back or better yet, would selling a Margaux clutch earn me back more than I paid for it retail? (No, but $3,764 isn’t nothing.)
Then when you consider heavy hitter trend items — like jelly shoes for example:
Are you to expect that because they’re the big trends of the season/have sold out over and over, your buyback rate will be impacted? For the Ancient Greek Iro styled above, the answer is no, you get $30 (unless you buy them from Farfetch, where they retails for $16 less and therefore gets back you back $26).
Psychically I wonder, does this impact whether you’ll buy the thing at all?
There are some anomalies — or at least they feel that way to me. Certain items, like these crochet shoes from Hyova, a lesser known brand and not really part of a trend would command $162 below the initial asking price of $440. That’s cool. Or take this bag from Cult Gaia, on sale now for $344. A guaranteed buyback of $221 regardless.
Maybe Croissant will help soften to blow of taking an expensive fashion risk.
Or perhaps there are games to play too — loopholes to find and exploit. I got the sunglasses I’m wearing in this summer-trench look above, for example, from Cettire for $363. But they retail for more like $575 —
And according to the extension, they’re buy-backable for $234 til next year at this time.
Then here with this look:
I Croissant-ed the boots, which I bought on sale from BG a few weeks ago for something like $460 (during a promotion that slashed 20% of the current $580 they’re down to now).
The buyback on them is $276, lest you’re going for the classic leather pair, in which case you’d earn $659, more than I paid for them in total.
Cultier brands like Khaite or Toteme or Miu Miu all seem to maintain steady buybacks, no doubt a reflection of market interest. But with a lesser known, more contemporary brand, like the Australian Sir for example—
The question of whether it would ever make sense to trigger a purchase expecting high buyback comes up. (Even though Co is probably a popular brand among sophisticated, style-minded consumers, a dress like this gets you almost nothing back [$288]) whereas this one from the more storied Italian brand, Blumarine, can get you like 40% back. The Birkenstock trade rate isn’t terrible, but the extension doesn’t seem to care whether the shoes are from a hypey collab or straightforwardly 1774s.)
I guess this question arises no matter the product — do we want to enter an era of shopping that’s driven by the assurance that now in addition to our being able to sell second hand, we can employ a third-party buyback?
I see pros and cons — acknowledging a low buyback and pursuing the item anyway could add more conviction to the purchase, more assurance in some way that you really want the thing, it’s for you and no one/thing else. The same could be true vice versa.
If you’re turned off by a $2,400 mesh bag because you can only guarantee yourself $819 back, maybe you don’t want it all that much.
It could also incline a more slippery shopping strategy — the same way that the ease of second-hand selling may have made it more tempting for us to justify the acquisition of an expensive item because we know there’s an opp for resale, you could find yourself buying something under the guise that worst comes to it, you’ll just sell it back.
The more optimistic possibility is that you surprise yourself and find that you’re taking more fashion risks that land well. It feels a little to me like free returns: you’re more open to buying the thing because you know you can send it back. Of course it’s different in that with Croissant, there is still money spent but generally speaking, at their best and if used correctly, I do think products like these have the potential to make us smarter, more conscious shoppers.
Or at the very least, they’ll help sharpen our math skills.
I liked the wrangling you did with this. Personally I find it a bit grim - like calculating the emotional cost of a break-up before you enter into a relationship - but it's kind of cool from a tech perspective. Good luck for the next few weeks L <3
Personally, I'd like to know where I can buy the items they buy back! Do they have a retail website or brick and mortar? I love buying pre-loved in an effort to save money.