💡 TL;DR：二手转售平台爆发式增长，但「买旧衣＝环保」可能是悖论：便宜刺激了更多购买，快时尚只是换了件马甲。

The Vinted paradox: is the secondhand shopping craze becoming unsustainable?

作者：Jeevan Vasagar（《观察家报》气候编辑） 发表：《观察家报》（The Observer），2026-10-10（10 月 11 日刊） 链接：https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/the-vinted-paradox-is-the-secondhand-shopping-craze-becoming-unsustainable 导语：Online resale platforms are booming, but experts warn that buying pre-loved clothes may be fuelling the very overconsumption they were conceived to help curb. 图片：Suki Dhanda / The Observer

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原文

Like many users of peer-to-peer clothing platforms, Briony Hockley admits that scrolling through images of secondhand apparel has an addictive quality. Increasingly, she worries this addiction is fuelling the overconsumption it was meant to curb.

Although Hockley, 29, a civil servant from Essex, was first drawn to platforms such as Vinted and Depop by their affordability, the promise of more sustainable fashion was “maybe 20%” of the appeal. “It does make me feel better that it’s secondhand and not going to landfill,” she said.

She has since become hooked by an algorithm tailored to her tastes and a constantly refreshed offer of clothes, adding: “You do get into the habit of checking all the time.”

Payments for the clothes she sells on Vinted are held in the app rather than transferred straight into her bank account, creating the illusion that it is “free money” to spend on more clothing. “I get into phases of impulse buying,” Hockley said. “I have convinced myself that I’m being more sustainable but it is still overconsumption.”

Reselling platforms have boomed in recent years. Vinted, founded in Lithuania in 2008, was valued at €8bn (£6.9bn) in April and last year generated worldwide revenues of more than €1bn. The platform launched in Australia this year and is now expanding in the US. Depop had revenue of £141m last year, according to its annual report.

The fashion industry’s greenhouse gas emissions come primarily from extracting and processing raw materials and from producing new clothes, so extending the life cycle of existing clothes has the power to transform the industry’s impact on the planet. But there is little evidence that the growing popularity of fashion resellers is curbing the desire to buy new.

Mark Sumner, head of the textiles programme at environmental charity Wrap, said: “What we have seen is that people who are buying a secondhand T-shirt, rather than being satisfied with that, are still [also] buying a new T-shirt.”

Sumner suggests it takes a higher number of secondhand purchases to scratch the fashion itch compared with buying new: “If they buy four or five [secondhand], it ultimately displaces one new T-shirt.”

Hockley used to hunt for bargains at charity shops instead of online, but she feels the quality of the clothing there has declined. Platforms such as Vinted are now skimming off the best of secondhand fashion, experts say, leaving charities to sift the dregs.

About 1.5m tonnes of textile waste is generated in the UK every year and nearly half of this goes into general waste where it is burned for energy or buried in landfill. Traditionally, charities have saved a large proportion of the remainder and sold it back to the public.

“Charities are having to work harder to find valuable products, and there’s more leftover stuff that has no value,” Sumner said, adding that the closure of scores of charity shops across the country this year and the sector’s shrinking capacity to deal with surplus textiles means more clothing is likely to be fly-tipped or dumped at tips.

Advocates of sustainable fashion suggest customers have grown so accustomed to the instant gratification of fast fashion that these habits have been transferred to reselling sites.

Holly Watkins, 44, began selling secondhand clothes on market stalls in 1995 and then shifted to eBay for convenience, but has now returned to offline retail with two stores in north London. Watkins said her focus was on building a community experience around buying second-hand clothes.

“Anything encouraging wider society to buy and sell secondhand is a good thing, but I think people make a better decision in real life,” Watkins said. “In the shop, it’s a much better process. I can ask somebody, ‘What will you style it with?’ People can see it fitting into their wardrobe and their life.”

Although clothes production has soared globally, durability has dropped. The hierarchy of filters on reselling platforms – from “new with tags” to quality descriptors such as “satisfactory” – tends to deprioritise clothes needing repairs.

“Nobody is going to buy something on Vinted that is shown as broken,” said Orsola de Castro, a fashion designer and author. “But repair is the only thing that can slow down mass consumption.” She suggested peer-to-peer platforms could play a part in connecting consumers to people with the specialist skills to repair apparel and shoes, but that this would also require a shift in the public’s mindset.

“Mending died because of the advent of fast fashion. You have to be willing to spend money to get back something that is better than it was before – a visible mend, or fit to size. It’s almost couture, bespoke,” she said.

Others in the industry point out that many brands already partner with the online repair site Sojo and run their own reselling platforms, but face modest levels of customer engagement.

An executive at a midsized British fashion brand, who requested anonymity, said: “What it comes back to is: does our customer care? And truthfully the answer is no.

“When you look at actual consumers, whenever we do surveys, sustainability is always number three on the priority list. We don’t use virgin materials [clothing that has not been previously used or recycled]. But recycled polyester continues to be our bestselling product.”

A spokesperson for Depop said the platform recognised the concerns about overconsumption and had measured how far purchases on its site replaced new ones. They added: “Our research shows most buyers are prepared to wait for the right find, or go without, rather than buy new.”

Depop said that more than three in five purchases on its platform prevent the purchase of a brand new item elsewhere. Vinted says that 76% of purchases on its platform replaced new buys last year, according to a survey of nearly 40,000 members.

A Vinted spokesperson said: “We recognise that making second-hand more accessible doesn’t eliminate consumption. But there’s an important distinction between encouraging people to buy more and giving them a more affordable alternative to buying new.”

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中文全文

Vinted 悖论：二手购物热潮正在变得不可持续吗？ 导语：线上转售平台正蓬勃发展，但专家警告，买二手衣服可能正在助长那种它本来要帮忙抑制的过度消费。

像许多点对点服装平台的用户一样，布里奥妮·霍克利承认，刷二手衣服的图片有一种上瘾的性质。她越来越担心，这种上瘾正在助长那种它本该抑制的过度消费。

29 岁的霍克利是埃塞克斯郡的公务员。她最初被 Vinted 和 Depop 这类平台吸引，是因为价格便宜；“更可持续的时尚”这个承诺，在吸引力里只占”大概 20%”。“它是二手的、不会进垃圾填埋场，这确实让我感觉好一点，“她说。

后来她被算法钩住了——算法贴合她的口味，衣服的供给又不断更新。“你确实会养成一直刷的习惯，“她补充说。

她在 Vinted 上卖衣服的钱，留在 app 里，而不是直接转到她的银行账户，这制造了一种幻觉：那是”白来的钱”，可以拿去再买衣服。“我会进入冲动消费的阶段，“霍克利说，“我说服自己我在更可持续地消费，但这仍然是过度消费。”

转售平台近年蓬勃发展。2008 年在立陶宛创立的 Vinted，今年 4 月估值 80 亿欧元（69 亿英镑），去年全球营收超过 10 亿欧元。该平台今年进入澳大利亚，目前正在美国扩张。Depop 去年的营收为 1.41 亿英镑，据其年报。

时尚业的温室气体排放主要来自原料的开采加工和新衣的生产，所以延长现有衣物的生命周期，有能力改变这个行业对地球的影响。但几乎没有证据表明，二手转售日益流行，正在抑制人们买新衣的欲望。

环保慈善机构 Wrap 纺织品项目负责人马克·萨姆纳说：“我们看到的是，买了二手 T 恤的人，并没有因此满足，他们同时还在买新的 T 恤。”

萨姆纳认为，比起买新衣，要止住时尚的痒，需要更多件二手衣服：“如果他们买四五件二手，最终才替代掉一件新 T 恤。”

霍克利以前是在慈善商店里淘便宜货，而不是在网上，但她觉得那里的衣服质量下降了。专家说，Vinted 这类平台正在把二手时尚里最好的一部分捞走，留给慈善商店的是沉渣。

英国每年产生约 150 万吨纺织废料，其中近一半进入一般垃圾，被焚烧发电或填埋。传统上，慈善机构会留下其中很大一部分，再卖回给公众。

“慈善机构得费更大的劲才能找到有价值的东西，剩下的没价值的东西更多了，“萨姆纳说。他还说，今年全国数十家慈善商店关门，加上这个行业处理过剩纺织品的能力萎缩，意味着更多衣服可能被非法倾倒或丢进垃圾场。

可持续时尚的倡导者认为，消费者已经太习惯快时尚带来的即时满足，这些习惯被转移到了转售网站上。

44 岁的霍莉·沃特金斯 1995 年开始在集市摊位上卖二手衣服，后来为了方便转到 eBay，现在又回到线下零售，在北伦敦开了两家店。沃特金斯说，她的重点是围绕买二手衣服建立一种社群体验。

“任何鼓励更广泛的人群买卖二手的事都是好事，但我认为人们在现实生活里会做出更好的决定，“沃特金斯说。“在店里，这个过程好得多。我可以问某个人，‘你打算配什么穿？‘人们能看见它如何融入自己的衣橱和生活。”

尽管全球服装产量飙升，耐用性却下降了。转售平台上的筛选层级——从”全新带吊牌”到”合格”这类质量描述——往往会降低需要修补的衣服的优先级。

“没有人会在 Vinted 上买一件标着坏了的衣服，“时装设计师、作家奥索拉·德·卡斯特罗说。“但修补是唯一能放慢大规模消费的事。“她认为，点对点平台可以发挥作用，把消费者和拥有修补衣物鞋子专门技能的人连接起来，但这也需要公众心态的转变。

“缝补死于快时尚的出现。你必须愿意花钱，让一样东西变得比以前更好——一个看得见的补丁，或者改到合身。这几乎是高级定制，是量身定做，“她说。

业内其他人指出，许多品牌已经与线上修补网站 Sojo 合作，也经营自己的转售平台，但用户参与度不高。

一位要求匿名的英国中型时尚品牌高管说：“归根结底是：我们的顾客在乎吗？说实话，答案是不在乎。”

“你看真实消费者，每次我们做调查，可持续性总是排在优先级的第三位。我们不用原生材料（未被使用或回收过的衣物材料）。但再生聚酯纤维仍然是我们的畅销产品。”

Depop 的一位发言人说，平台认识到关于过度消费的担忧，也测量过站内购买在多大程度上替代了新衣购买。他们补充说：“我们的研究显示，大多数买家愿意等到合适的那一件，或者干脆不买，而不是去买新的。”

Depop 说，平台上超过五分之三的购买，阻止了在别处购买一件全新商品。Vinted 说，根据对近 4 万名会员的调查，去年平台上 76% 的购买替代了新衣购买。

Vinted 的一位发言人说：“我们承认，让二手更容易获得，并不能消除消费。但鼓励人们买更多，和给他们一个比买新衣更便宜的替代品，这之间有重要的区别。”